COTE. ST. LUC - Montreal's Jewish community fears it is being targeted in an orchestrated campaign of hatred.
Five synagogues and a Jewish school had their windows smashed with rocks over the weekend.
Rabbi Reuben Poupko, a member of a Jewish community security committee, said overall the damage to the buildings was limited to broken windows, but the anguish caused by the attacks is far greater.
"It's very disturbing," said Poupko. "When five institutions are hit in the same night in a targeted and focused way, it is deeply troubling and unsettling."
Poupko also said that attacks against synagogues and Jewish schools happens fairly frequently.
The synagogues struck on Saturday night were Dorshei Emet, Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem, Beth Rambam and Beth Zion, while the Yavne Academy in Cote St. Luc was also vandalized.
Police suspect the attacks are related. They have no eyewitnesses but are hoping surveillance video from one of the synagogues might offer some clues.
No arrests have been made.
The attacks brought condemnation Monday from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.
"The attacks . . . represent a series of hateful and systematic acts not just on institutions but on a religious community itself,'' Ignatieff said in a statement.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with Jewish communities across Canada that once again have been made to feel that their congregations and the children in their schools have cause to fear for their safety.''
Ignatieff said government efforts to help provide security for such institutions haven't gone far enough. One of his MPs, Irwin Cotler, noted that Jan. 17 was Raoul Wallenberg Day and he suggested people should honour the late humanitarian by standing up against this "clear anti-Semitic hate crime.''
The Quebec Jewish Congress said it met with police and felt reassured that authorities were taking the incidents seriously.
"This violence has sparked an emotional reaction in the Jewish community,'' said the group's president, Adam Atlas.
"Attacking places of worship and teaching is not only completely disgraceful, but it threatens our society's values of liberty and tolerance.''
B'nai Brith said this weekend's attacks also brought back "painful memories'' of the firebombing of the city's United Talmud Torah School.
The school was torched just before Passover in 2004.
Local men Sleiman El-Merhebi and Simon Zogheib were charged in the case, which made international headlines and drew donations to help rebuild the school's library.
Two months ago, a synagogue in Laval suffered $100,00 in damage after placed a garden hose into a pipe that leads into the building's oil tank and left it to flood overnight.
About 2,300 litres of oil spilled onto the back lawn, causing contamination and other damage to the Young Israel of Chomedey synagogue. In another troubling incident last March, a synagogue in Outremont was defaced with swastikas.
Vandals broke into the Congregation Ahavat Israel at the corner of Van Horne Ave. and Durocher St. overnight and threw religious symbols such as prayer shawls to the ground and drew swastikas on the pulpit.
