A blogger who boasts that his critiques of Hasidic leaders
in Outremont have revealed “revolting” practices and flushed out “bugs” from
darkened corners has successfully defended a libel suit brought against him by
three prominent community leaders.
A Quebec Superior Court judge rejected the plaintiffs’ claim
for $375,000 in damages, concluding that Pierre Lacerte’s commentary was
acerbic but it was based on facts.
The Dec. 4 decision by Judge Claude Dallaire is the latest
chapter in a six-year-old legal feud that has highlighted the sometimes tense
relationship between Outremont’s growing Hasidic community and its non-Jewish
neighbours.
Mr. Lacerte, who lives across the street from an
ultra-orthodox synagogue, created his blog in 2007 and uses it to denounce what
he considers to be the law-breaking and undue political influence of senior
Hasidim.
Words are his only weapon
.
The blog reports frequently on such transgressions as
double-parked cars outside the synagogue, renovations conducted without proper
permits and chartered buses picking up passengers on residential streets. Mr.
Lacerte alleges that Outremont’s borough council is in cahoots with the Hasidim
and turns a blind eye to the law breaking.
For father-and-son real-estate developers Michael and Martin
Rosenberg and Hasidic spokesman Alex Werzberger, the attacks became too much.
Michael Rosenberg, president and CEO of the Rosdev Group, testified last
January that Mr. Lacerte’s writings have damaged his reputation. And he alleged
in an interview that the blog is anti-Semitic, accusing Mr. Lacerte of
“stirring up a lot of problems” in Outremont.
Mr. Lacerte told the court that “words are his only weapon,”
and the judgment lists examples of the artillery he levelled at Michael
Rosenberg over the issue of illegal parking. He said the developer “likes to
break the law,” calling him a “fanatic,” an “ultra-religious extremist,” “a
Hasidic nabob” and the “righter of wrongs of the ghetto.”
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