NO PROGRESS IN SEARCH FOR SCHOOL FIREBOMBER
By Janice Arnold
Staff Reporter

The Canadan Jewish News
September 14, 2006

MONTREAL – The perpetrator of a Molotov-cocktail attack on a chassidic
boys’ school in Montreal over Labour Day weekend remains at large
despite the act having been videotaped by the school’s surveillance
camera and despite a $5,000 reward offered by an anonymous donor for
information leading to his arrest.

The images released by police show, from an angle, a masked
black-haired man, seemingly in his 20s and apparently alone, wearing
a beige top and beige pants reaching to below the knees. He is seen
lighting an accelerant and throwing it through a glass panel of the
main entrance of the Skver community’s Toldos Yakov Yosef school in
the city’s Outremont neighbourhood shortly after midnight on Saturday,
Sept. 2.

In the last frame, he removes his hood-like mask as he flees.

School and Jewish community officials told a press conference last
week that they’re confident and grateful police are putting the
necessary resources into their investigation.

The community and police, however, differ on the motivation for
the crime.

Police have so far not labelled the incident a hate crime, because
of the absence of evidence such as graffiti or phone calls, and are
treating it as arson.

But Canadian Jewish Congress, B’nai Brith Canada and Toldos
leaders are convinced the perpetrator deliberately targeted a
Jewish institution. No one was in the school at the time. About a
dozen teenaged students had left the building only about 20 minutes
beforehand.

Damage was limited to the school’s vestibule because sprinklers put out
the fire and the fire department responded quickly, school director
Binyomin Mayer said. He thanked the school’s non-Jewish neighbours
for immediately alerting police and coming to see if anyone was on
the premises.

The school reopened the next day, but it estimates it will cost
$150,000 to repair damage and add new security features.

Asked if he thought there was a connection between the incident and the
recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Rabbi Reuben Poupko, co-chair of the
Montreal Jewish Security Advisory Committee, told reporters that it’s
"a fair question to wonder whether the gathering of 15,000 Quebecers
under the flag of Hezbollah – unfortunately further legitimized by
the presence of politicians – creates an atmosphere where fanatics
draw the conclusion that violence against Jews is somehow acceptable."

He said many in the community have been asking themselves that
question. Rabbi Poupko was referring to the Aug. 6 demonstration
against the recent war in which three politicians – Bloc Quebecois
leader Gilles Duceppe, Parti Quebecois leader Andre Boisclair and
federal Liberal MP Denis Coderre – participated prominently.

At the press conference, held three days after the firebombing,
community officials asked that political leaders forcefully denounce
the Toldos attack. But reaction was slow and scattered, unlike the
firebombing of United Talmud Torahs’ library in April 2004, when
politicians at all levels, including then-prime minister Paul Martin,
immediately condemned the act. (Prime Minister Stephen Harper has
yet to issue a statement.)

Duceppe was one of the first politicians to condemn the incident and
affirm that Quebecers do not tolerate any such "hateful act whoever
it is directed at, or for whatever reason." Boisclair soon after
denounced the incident as well.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest said: "No one can determine at this point
if it was motivated by hate.

But nonetheless I think it is important that all Quebec see very
clearly on this issue that we are a society of tolerance, that we
are a society that encourages free speech and that we should not and
cannot tolerate these kinds of acts."

Federal Liberal leadership candidate and Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison
visited the school to express his revulsion against what he called
an act of "terrorism" against children and education.

NDP leader Jack Layton likewise stated: "How could someone be so
callous as to attempt to strike terror into the hearts of young
children?"

Alex Werzberger, president of the Coalition of Chassidic Organizations
of Outremont, pointed out there is an Armenian church and school two
blocks away from Toldos, as well as a French school on a nearby block,
which suggests to him that the perpetrator had "his pick of schools"
but went for the Jewish one.

"You can’t put any other spin on it than anti-Semitism."

Werzberger said there hasn’t been a serious anti-Semitic incident in
Outremont for a long time, nor has there been any recent contentious
issue, such as disputes over shul locations, parking problems or an
eruv, which were all prominent several years ago.

"Other than someone yelling ‘damned Jews,’ which is almost a daily
occurrence, there has been nothing," he said.

FEDERATION CJA, which co-ordinates community security, is re-evaluating
security at Jewish schools and other institutions in the wake of
the incident, but it did not raise its threat-assessment level as a
result of the incident. It continues to call for "heightened vigilance"
and implementation of existing procedures.

Since the UTT firebombing, the federation has had a full-time community
security director, Michel Bujold, formerly in charge of security at
Concordia University. He was on the Toldos crime scene about three
hours later.

After UTT, Combined Jewish Appeal raised $2.3 million specifically
for security, and all 40 school and day-care sites were assessed by
a U.S security professional. Toldos was found to be at risk and CJA
heavily subsidized the installation of a surveillance camera. The
school, located a former industrial area that is now mainly home to
condominiums, has been defaced with swastikas in the past. Its girls’
school is down the street, as is a Belzer chassidic school.

CJC Quebec region chair Jeffrey Boro said it will be determined if
additional security at the schools is needed. Rabbi Poupko said the
incident proved that the security structure in place worked well and
the community’s investment paid off.

The psychological damage from the attack may last a while, Mayer
said. Some Toldos students, especially those between six and 12, are
showing signs of anxiety and counsellors have been hired to help them.

Toldos has about 250 boys from age three to 16, Mayer said. There
are about 200 Skver families in Montreal.

Originally from Ukraine, the community is headquartered near Spring
Valley, N. Y., where its Grand Rebbe, David Twersky, lives.

Boro, a criminal lawyer by profession, admitted that no matter how
many layers of security are in place, there’s no way to totally
prevent acts such as the firebombing.

"What we have to do is educate people. Civil discourse is the rule
of the day. We have to continue outreach programs and show people we
are not so different."

The UTT firebombing was immediately called a hate crime by police
because of a note left at the school, but the perpetrator was not
charged with a hate crime.

Sleiman El-Merhebi, 20, was released from a federal prison in May
after serving two-thirds of a 40-month sentence.

A date for his mother’s trial is to be set Sept. 25.

Rouba El-Merhebi Fahd is charged with being an accessory after the
fact of her son’s crime.