Synagogue vandal may have struck before

Police look at similarities to previous attacks


MONTREAL - Police investigating last month's string of overnight attacks against Jewish religious and community centres are examining whether there are links with a series of similar crimes 12 months earlier.

"Last year we had ... five (Jewish institutions) vandalized and that was around Jan. 26," Sylvain Bissonnette, commander of District 9, told reporters Thursday. "This year we had ... six institutions (vandalized) on Jan. 16."

In the latest attacks, several windows were smashed with thrown rocks at Beth Rambam, Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem and Beth Zion synagogues in Cote St. Luc and Dorshei Emet synagogue in Hampstead.

Last year's attacks were carried out in the same area and in the same manner.

"What we know is that we have a person ... who struck at an entire community, not just buildings," said Bissonnette. "Someone went from one synagogue to another over a relatively short period of time and struck in the communities of Hampstead and Cote. St. Luc."

Bissonnette said security tapes from the synagogues struck this year and last suggest the vandalism was the work of a single individual.

Yesterday, Bissonnette and local media attended a presentation by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre on the presence of hatred on the Internet. During the presentation, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, an associate dean at the centre, said police infiltration of racist and anti-Semitic groups was such that the groups were now appealing online to individuals rather than identifiable group members to spread their views.

Saying that the Internet did not create hatred but could be used as an "incubator" for it, Cooper displayed a selection of Web pages, some of them on Facebook, calling for the deaths of Jews, Christians or Muslims.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, whose congregation was among those hit by this year's vandalism, said progress had been made in the fight against anti-Semitism.

"But the Internet complicates things," he said, "When you're the only anti-Semite in a village of 3,000, you'll re-think things.

"When, all of a sudden, you can align yourself with the one anti-Semite in 400 other villages, you start to feel normal again and you start to feel confident in your beliefs."