(Aug. 25, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n
Montreal City Council voted to amend a motion that would have cut the city\u2019s institutional ties with Israel and instead passed a version that recognizes Hamas as a terror organization and notes the rise in Jew-hatred across the country.<\/p>\n
References to \u201capartheid\u201d and \u201cgenocide\u201d were removed from the motion, which the opposition party Projet Montreal had put forward. The final version supports international judicial bodies examining allegations of \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council voted 38-22 to make the changes, which the administration of Soraya Martinez Ferrada, mayor of the city, promoted. The amended motion then passed 54-6.<\/p>\n
In the passed version, the council \u201caffirms its solidarity with the Palestinian people\u201d and supports a negotiated two-stated solution.<\/p>\n
Paola Samuel, Quebec and Atlantic Canada regional director at B\u2019nai Brith Canada, stated that she was \u201cpleased that the City Council did not adopt the deceitful and distorted language contained in the original motion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Divisions about the \u201cconflict in the Middle East\u201d are \u201ccontributing to a significant increase in hostility and violence targeting the Jewish community,\u201d Samuel said. \u201cThis manifested itself at City Hall last night, where an angry mob of extremists accosted people leaving the building, shouting hateful invectives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel urged the council \u201cto continue to focus its attention on what matters most to its constituents\u2014housing, crime and affordability\u2014rather than inserting itself into complex geopolitical issues that foster division and contribute to the normalization of hate on our streets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rabbi Saul Emanuel, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, stated that he was \u201cdeeply troubled\u201d by the substance of the adopted motion, despite the changes made, and by \u201cthe fact that a motion singling out Israel in this manner was brought before Montreal\u2019s municipal government in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA substantially improved motion is not the same thing as a good motion,\u201d the rabbi said. \u201cThe fact that it was proposed at all, and that council could not simply say no, demonstrates how profoundly Montreal has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Aug. 25, 2026 \/ JNS) Montreal City Council voted to amend a motion that would have cut the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-595815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}