shared on Facebook by the council<\/a>, a car is seen pulling up next to the curb before a man gets out and opens the back door. As a Hasidic man walks by, the man sneaks up from behind and tries to snatch his hat. A brief confrontation follows, with the man taunting the victim before running back to the car, which speeds off.\u00a0<\/p>\nMuller believes the incidents go beyond being possible pranks or random acts of mischief. In other cases, he said, people were subject to antisemitic slurs and insults, or had cans or bottles thrown at them. One man who uses a wheelchair was spat on, he added.<\/p>\n
He could not say whether it\u2019s believed more than one car was involved, but noted the three shtreimels were all stolen on different streets in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey snuck up on people quietly and, once it was done, they laughed in their faces, yelled slurs at them and ran away,\u201d Muller said. \u201cThey knew exactly what they were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Montreal police would not comment on the incidents beyond noting the hate crimes division has launched an investigation. The department noted the incidents took place in areas covered by two different police stations, PDQ 26 and 38. <\/p>\n
Outremont borough mayor Caroline Braun denounced the attacks on social media, saying she is aware of about 10 people filing complaints. Braun said they come as she\u2019s noticed a \u201cworrying rise in antisemitism\u201d in Montreal and Outremont for several months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen the emergence of hateful graffiti, acts of intimidation, violence and hate speech that have no place in our city. This escalation is unacceptable,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThis must stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n
Muller said those who were targeted are co-operating with investigators and urged anyone who witnessed something Friday to also contact police.<\/p>\n
The incidents have left many in the community shaken and wondering whether they can wear their religious garments in public, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe we will be strong\u200a \u2014\u200a I will not take my shtreimel off my head, nor will most of the community \u2014 but it\u2019s not as easy as before,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
jfeith@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Montreal police\u2019s hate crimes division is investigating a string of alleged incidents targeting Hasidic Jewish men Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-785256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}