Third Jewish-Owned Restaurant in Montreal Vandalized in One Week Amid String of Attacks

Shiryn Ghermezian

The remains of a kosher restaurant in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood are seen after a weekend fire caused extensive damage in an incident police are investigating as possible arson amid a wave of antisemitic attacks targeting the city’s Jewish community. Photo: Screenshot

A kosher Jewish-owned restaurant in Montreal, Canada, was broken into and robbed on Wednesday, marking the third attack against Jewish-owned establishments in the city in seven days.

The vandalism and robbery at Schnitzels, located on Queen Mary Road, took place two days after Pizza Pita Prime in Décarie Square had its window smashed and shortly after two suspected arson attacks at Mimimelon, a kosher bakery in Ville St-Laurent.

Video and images shared on social media show the glass door of Schnitzels shattered and scattered on the floor across the entrance. 
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The restaurant’s owner, Joseph Cohen, said those responsible for the vandalism also stole between $700 and $800 in cash, as well as personal receipts, according to the Montreal Gazette. No arrests have been made yet. The robbery on Wednesday was the second time that Schnitzels has been damaged in recent months after an unsuccessful attempt to break the restaurant’s front window.

“We are truly just devastated that this happening to all these Jewish-owned businesses. Really sad!” Cohen told the Gazette. “I don’t necessarily believe it was directed [antisemitism]. But it’s been happening to a lot of them recently. We work in a very popular area for cafés and food places. Why us?”

Early Monday morning, someone smashed a window at Pizza Pita with a heavy rock. The vandalism took place on the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the infamous state-sponsored Nazi pogrom throughout Germany targeting Jewish communities on Nov. 9-10, 1938. During the “Night of Broken Glass,” Nazis burned down synagogues, vandalized and looted Jewish-owned businesses, broke into Jewish people’s homes, murdered Jews, and deported 26,000 Jewish men to concentration camps, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

At Mimimelon, a deliberate fire struck the restaurant late on Nov. 2 but was quickly put out before causing damage throughout the establishment. A second arson attack took place early on Nov. 4 and completely destroyed the restaurant. Montreal police said its hate crime unit and arson squad were investigating the fires. In September, a masked stranger walked in Mimimelon and yelled, “All the Jews will burn,” before running away.

In August, the kosher dairy restaurant Nöam on Montreal’s Décarie Boulevard burned down from a suspected arson attack, and in Toronto, two locations of Kiva’s Bagel Bar were targeted. A gunman struck a window at one branch of the Jewish-owned bakery chain the same day that vandals smashed a window at a second location.

Last year, over two-thirds of all religion-motivated hate crimes in Canada were directed at Jews, who make up only 1 percent of the population. B’nai Brith Canada recorded 27 violent antisemitic incidents in the first six months of 2026, which was nearly triple the amount recorded all of last year.