Was Montreal shooting an attack on Jews?

What started as a normal day of work for Saul Emanuel, a South African expat in Montreal, Canada, quickly evolved into chaos as a shooting on 22 June left three people dead around the corner from his offices. 

While some news outlets are claiming that this was an antisemitic attack, Emanuel, the executive director of the Montreal equivalent of the Beth Din, insists it was anything but that. 

The shooting took place outside a building in Côte-des-Neiges whose tenants include Aylo, the multinational parent company of website Pornhub. The neighbourhood is home to several Jewish institutions, schools, synagogues, and community organisations. 

In a statement on X on 23 June, Emanuel maintained that while people might rush to assume it was an antisemitic attack, no such conclusion had been established by law enforcement and no evidence had yet been made public. 

“This reaction may be understandable, but it remains erroneous. We therefore invite everyone to resist the temptation to be the first to comment and instead prioritise accuracy and caution. The facts will eventually be established. The investigators will determine the perpetrator’s motives for this attack. In the meantime, both citizens and community leaders must allow the authorities to do their work,” he wrote. 

“Everybody knows that it wasn’t targeted towards the community at all,” Emanuel told the SA Jewish Report. 

“This wasn’t an antisemitic attack, and people should be careful in calling it that because antisemitic attacks are serious at any time, and if one just calls every attack antisemitic, then obviously it dilutes, G-d forbid, when there is one, and this was not an antisemitic attack,” he said. 

“He chose a concentrated area of the community in which to carry out his shooting but it appeared that it was not directed at the Jewish community.” 

Emanuel, who has lived in Montreal since leaving South Africa in 1998, explained that at around 11:00 on Monday, people in his building heard multiple gunshots and headed to windows to see what was happening on the road below. 

“I looked outside and saw two police officers crouching behind their cars with their guns drawn. And then from all directions there were cop cars coming. Eventually there were more than 100 police cars in the area, then the SWAT [Special Weapons and Tactics] team and the canine unit were called and they called for backup from the Quebec police department,” he said. 

“Police were coming from all directions. Patrol cars were driving on the wrong side of the road and even on the pavements because they couldn’t get through. Roads were being closed, and the highway that runs beneath our offices, a major artery in the city, was completely shut down for six hours. People were trapped in their cars and unable to leave.” 

When Emanuel had heard the gunshots, he had been concerned it could be a targeted attack. 

“I didn’t really think that we were being targeted, although our building has been targeted before. However, since the gunshots were not really coming in our direction, immediately the concern was of the surrounding area and of all the people in the area because there’s a very large Jewish community presence here,” he said. 

All buildings, including his, were placed on lockdown until police could secure the area. 

“There was an assumption that there was more than one shooter and everybody was told to stay inside in the surrounding areas. Alerts were sent out on cellphones that no one should be leaving their houses, everybody had to stay put. It was only after six hours that we were allowed to leave,” he said. 

“There was complete mayhem during the first hour as the situation unfolded. Police didn’t know exactly where the shooter was and were unable to secure the perimeter. At one point, they believed he had moved to another area beneath our offices and were concerned he might have entered a different hotel. The shooting had started at the hotel next door to us, so there was a great deal of confusion. It was total chaos until authorities were finally able to bring some order to the area.” 

Emanuel was able to get video feeds of what was happening down below through people filming from the rooftops of the buildings around the scene. They were also able to get eyewitness reports of what was happening. 

“We were therefore able to get some information and assumed that there was more than one shooter ourselves, as many did, but it became clear that it was only one shooter,” he said. 

Montreal police officer Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, 34, and local Jewish resident Michel Mizrahi, 68, were killed, and the shooter was gunned down by the police. Another police officer was seriously wounded but survived. 

Authorities later revealed that the suspect had left behind a 104-page manifesto blaming feminism, liberalism, and capitalism for the loneliness, isolation, and social degradation that he believed men face, beliefs commonly associated with the incel (involuntary celibate) movement. 

The manifesto lists what the shooter claimed were “valid potential class A targets”, including large investment banks, powerful politicians, “influential Zionists”, corporate executives in private healthcare, companies involved in environmental destruction, plastic surgeons, and cryptocurrency speculators. The manifesto mentions targeting “the headquarters of international pornography companies”. It ends with the words “Be unflinching, go forth, and KILL THEM ALL!” 

Investigators are still determining the motive for the shooting. 

The death of Constable Benredouane was particularly significant as he is the first Montreal police officer killed in the line of duty in 24 years. 

Although there was so much commotion, Emanuel was able to return to the office the next day, with a large police presence still in the area.