Shooting in Jewish area of Montreal leaves civilian, police officer dead; motive unclear

A shooting on Monday in a heavily Jewish neighborhood of Montreal left three people dead, including a police officer, a civilian resident, and the alleged assailant, police in the Canadian city said.

The bloodshed occurred in a neighborhood that includes kosher markets and restaurants, but police declined to comment on what the motive might have been and whether the incident amounted to a hate crime or act of terror.

“It is with immense sadness that we confirm the death of one of our police officers in the line of duty,” Montreal police said in a statement posted on X.

They separately announced that the suspect and a resident had been killed, while also urging residents to avoid the area. Public broadcaster Radio Canada said another officer was seriously wounded.

The ZAKA Jewish rescue organization originally identified a man named as Michael Mizrahi as being killed in the attack, before backtracking and saying Mizrahi was seriously wounded and undergoing treatment.

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Montreal police chief Fady Dagher said the incident was “more than terrible,” adding: “It’s a tragedy, a nightmare.”

It was not clear whether the intended targets were Jewish, but Rabbi Motti Seligson, a Chabad spokesman in New York, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that, based on what he has heard from Chabad representatives in Montreal, the shooting did not seem to be related to the Jewish community.

Gezy Markowitz, a rabbi who works in the area, said the shooting took place in a community with multiple Jewish institutions, including educational centers and a food bank.

“People are asking me if it’s an attack on the Jewish community. I think it would just be completely irresponsible even [to] speak to that at this point, because [all] we know, it was an attack right now on the police,” he said.

The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), a prominent Canadian civil society group, said it was “closely monitoring the situation.”

“As we await more details about the nature of this horrifying incident, we urge community members to exercise vigilance,” CIJA said, in the hours following the shooting.

Many members of the Jewish community were sheltering in place on the street where the attack took place, with two telling JTA that, to the best of their knowledge, the attack did not appear to be targeting Jews.

Yitzhak Rosenblum, a member of the local Chevra Kadisha, a volunteer burial society, said that he was working at his office “when I heard a bunch of cops flying by and I heard some gunshots.”

Quebec’s public security minister, Ian Lafreniere, said “for now, we don’t really know what the motive of this individual was.”

Quebec Premier Christine Frechette said she was “deeply shaken by the tragic events that occurred today in the Côte-des-Neiges area.”

“It is essential to allow the authorities to do their work and to avoid speculation,” added Frechette.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “horrified” by the violence.

Côte-des-Neiges was the scene of postwar Jewish settlement as Jewish families ascending from the working to the middle class moved west from the area of St. Laurent Boulevard. The area, with treelined streets studded with duplexes and low-rise apartment buildings, had a friendly neighborhood ambience and lacked the anti-Jewish restrictions some of the wealthier enclaves maintained at the time.

There are a number of Jewish schools and synagogues in the area, including the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, the oldest congregation in the country, established in 1768 and relocated to the neighborhood in 1947. The neighborhood is now the site of a large Chabad community and a number of Jewish restaurants and delis.

The neighborhood has been targeted by gunfire in recent years, including incidents in 2023 and 2024, where shots were fired at Orthodox schools.