Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘utt firebombing’

Three out of the five suspects in the UTT arson were formally charged, including 18-year-old Simon Zogheib, 18-year-old Sleiman Elmerhebi… and 33-year-old Rouba Elmerheibi Fahd… the latter’s mother. She was charged with being an “accessory after the fact”, which could mean anything from helping to cover up the crime to actually participating in helping them get away, for example. The evidence will be made public tomorrow. All three pled not guilty.

Some parenting.

I personally get a little annoyed by the fact that there have been immediate predictable reactions about “the Arabs” or “the Muslims” (especially considering Zogheib is apparently Christian). The crime was perpetrated by the criminals, not by all members of a certain background or ethnic group.

That said, these particular arsonists – if found guilty – did set themselves up for having their motives questioned by taping a note to the door of the school saying that the arson was “retaliation” for Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Shiek Ahmed Yassin. In my opinion, they ought to be charged with a hate crime, not merely with arson or vandalism. Anyone who proudly trumpets hate as a motive should be punished appropriately, and a clear message should be sent that this kind of thing isn’t acceptable in Canada. I hope that, if they are indeed the guilty parties, that they go to jail for a long time.

The police have arrested five suspects in conjunction with the firebombing at UTT that destroyed the elementary school’s library last month:

“Four males aged between 18 and 20 and one female in her 30s were all apprehended at 6:15 this morning,” Montreal police spokesman Ian Lafrenière said Friday.

[ . . . ]

Lafreniere did not give the nationalities of those arrested, saying there was some information police did not want to reveal so as not to jeopardize the investigation into other possible suspects.

Or perhaps that they’re too politically-correct to provide that information. It’s sure to come out shortly, though – they can’t withhold the information forever.

This overshadows even Russell Crowe’s gesture:

The kids come from Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Turkey and China. They’ve experienced famine, war and death. They know hatred when they see it.

When students from the All Rights Committee (ARC) and the Student Parliament at the Islington Junior Middle School [in Toronto] heard about the firebombing of the United Talmud Torahs (UTT) library in Montreal earlier this month, they responded quickly and collected $440 and 250 books to help UTT rebuild.

[ . . . ]

When the UTT arson happened, “we wanted to show the Jewish people that we care and that we think it should stop,” Sarah Gaikwad, 13, says.

The article says that every class in the school contributed something, as much as they could. These are the kids who are being taught the right values, and they should be applauded for their help.

Gotta give him props for this one: Russell Crowe has pledged aid to Talmud Torah in the wake of the firebombing. Apparently the movie star, who was filming in Toronto, heard about the hate crime and phoned the principal of the school to lend his support:

Tough guy actor Russell Crowe was so upset by a fire-bombing at a Jewish elementary school in Montreal, he called the school to offer a donation to help rebuild its library, a school spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

[ . . . ]

“He said he was very upset about what had happened that a place of learning should be attacked that way,” Paris said.

“He wanted to make sure that our students knew that he was thinking about them and that he was very upset about the fire-bombing,” Paris said.

I was starting to think that there were no Hollywood actors left with any kind of a conscience. Even if it was a publicity stunt, this is refreshing.

After her army service and before starting university, an Israeli friend of mine worked for a while as a security guard at elementary schools.

All the schools have armed guards now in Israel, for obvious reasons. They guard entranceways, check bags of people going in, and basically stay on the alert for anything suspicious. It’s sad but necessary. And as much as I hated my friend’s choice of job, it did pay better than waitress or gas station attendant… and let’s face it, these days it wasn’t really any more dangerous. But as much as I love Israel, I was grateful that I live in safe, secure Canada, where schools don’t need security guards.

Not anymore.

This morning, on my regular drive to work, I passed by a local Jewish elementary school, as I do every day. Yesterday was the first day of classes after Passover for the students there, and I didn’t notice anything in particular since I went into the office very early. But today, I drove by while the kids were out in the schoolyard for recess. And in addition to the teachers at their regular posts inside the schoolyard fence, I couldn’t help but see the security guard standing just outside. He was wearing a big jacket saying “SECURITY” in huge letters, and wearing an earpiece, and he was watching the traffic and all the people around the school with an alert, hardened look in his eyes.

He was the only guard I saw, but there may have been others. I understand why it’s necessary. The U.T.T. firebombing makes extra security a necessity. From the parents’ point of view, the more the better – anything to protect their kids.

But it also saddens me immensely that it’s come to this. That here, in safe secure Montreal, we need security at elementary schools to prevent sickos with agendas from attacking children.

• What on earth is that William Hung kid doing performing on Jay Leno? Sheesh, he’s so bad it’s embarrassing! I’d feel bad for the poor kid… but he’s more successful than most real musicians in North America. For the next 15 minutes at least. I don’t watch American Idol or anything, but I’d venture to say he’s enjoying more fame and publicity than any of the finalists! From Beatles to Hung in less than fifty years. What is music coming to?

• Letters like this one are encouraging and nice to see. But they’re also easy. Too easy. It’s simple to act upset and shocked when assholes firebomb an elementary school. It’s harder to face down other forms of antisemitism that aren’t so obvious but are just as harmful. I’d like to see a flooding of support for the Jewish community when there’s a suicide attack in Israel. Instead, we get finger-pointing and Israel-bashing.

• Speaking of the UTT fire, Geoff has photos (via Celestial Blue). Disturbing to see the building that way. I can’t bring myself to drive by. Though the attack happened in the elementary school’s library, the high school is attached and so I spent 5 years of my life inside that building on a near-daily basis. I’m too used to remembering it as the place I dreaded seeing as we drove up every morning… and was happy to be let loose from every afternoon … only because it meant long days trapped inside boring classes. It meant a school that was falling apart, with leaky toilets and an ever-present smell of rotten fish. It meant all the things that are a normal part of high school. It never meant fear of being harmed or attacked. What will the building mean to the current students?

• Lynn has the latest about the Mel Gibson movie, and its convenient messages in the Arab world. Here’s a hint: It’s not a hit in Muslim countries because of Monica Belluci’s breasts.

• Michele has done a lot to restore my faith in the education system. It seems that there are actually teachers out there who encourage kids to think for themselves and debate!

• In the meantime, I’ve concluded that Passover must be sponsored by the gyms and fitness centres. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt in such need of exercise.

Finally, let’s just pause for a moment and appreciate the wonderful thing that is a LONG WEEKEND!!!

Just four days ago, someone firebombed a local grade school.

This morning, there was a suspicious package at a Jewish cemetery:

Police detonated a suspicious package found at a Jewish cemetery in the Ahuntsic borrough Thursday morning. The package looked like a white bag with wires wrapped around it. A piece of paper was left behind but police would say little about it. Constable Micheal Kriaa told reporters that it could be a few days before we learn if there was actually explosive material in the package.

It may be a little while until we know whether this was really a bomb, or a false alarm. I’m really hoping for the latter. This is starting to get scary.

Update: The media is now reporting that it seems this was a false alarm after all. That’s a relief.

Well, firstly, it was #1 topic of conversation at tonight’s seder. Considering a large portion of my attending family went to either the grade school or the high school sometime in their lives, it was certainly on the list of topics to discuss. As I’m sure it was at a lot of people’s seders.

Really, if you think about it, whatever sick freaks did this didn’t time it very well. Not only is the school is closed for Passover anyway, but there’s gonna be a lot of angry Jews discussing it at their seders and demanding action.

In the blogosphere, I see that LGF and Burnside have picked up the story. And Stefan Sharkansky wonders whether officials are too politically-correct to release information that would seem to implicate Palestinian-sympathetic vandals as the responsible parties:

The CBC and the Toronto Star might not want to confront the unpleasant truth about the motives and identities of the arsonists, but at least some Canadian journalists are doing their jobs:

The CTV network quoted sources who said the notes denounced recent attacks against Palestinians, including the killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Islamic Hamas movement, and threatened further attacks.

The contents of the note and the name of the “unknown organization” that signed the note should be released.

If – and this is a big if – what CTV said is true about the content of the note, then it must – and will – be dealt with. Especially considering the note threatened future attacks, which is truly chilling:

“Our goal was only to sound the alarm without causing deaths. . .but this is just a beginning. If your crimes continue in the Middle East, our attacks will continue,” the letter reads.

There’s no telling whether the assholes who did this were using it as an excuse or cover-up, or whether they really are affiliated with some Hamas-sympathetic group. Not yet anyway. My sense is that the police will release details when they see fit, and until then, they might be keeping them under wraps to help them do their jobs. And anything that increases the chances of apprehending the responsible parties is okay with me.

And the political reactions continue. Here’s PM Paul Martin:

“This is not my Canada. This is not our Canada,” he told reporters in Burlington, Ont.

“They are attacking all of us. And it is only if we are unequivocal in that statement that we join together that we are preserving our values.”

And of course, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler (a UTT grad himself) wasted no time ringing in:

“As students, we experienced anti-Semitism, but it was an anti-Semitism of ignorance, of stereotype, of prejudice. What we have witnessed here today, it’s anti-Semitism of hatred, racism and violence.”

“We will not be intimidated and we will act and we will bring the full force of the law to bear against those who commit these cowardly hate crimes,” Cotler told reporters.

And Mayor Gerald Tremblay:

“These acts will not be tolerated in our city and must be denounced as emphatically as possible,” he said.

It’s good that people are taking this seriously.

Never once in eleven years of Hebrew school did I feel unsafe in my classroom (except for maybe the fear of exams, or a test tube exploding in a science lab). The current students, who are pretty much exactly like me, won’t have that luxury.

I’m just plain angry now. There should be a special section of hell reserved for anyone who targets or frightens innocent children.

Another update: It seems Michael Demmons has picked up the story. And Ted Belman at Israpundit posted about it, and included an e-mail from Lori Anders, who was a grade ahead of me in high school. The Globe and Mail, Gazette, and La Presse all have plastered the story prominently on their front pages. And the AP story is being picked up off the wires by publications as remote as the Kansas City Star.

This is truly sick and disgusting. Someone set fire to the library of U.T.T. St-Laurent, one of the major Jewish elementary schools here in Montreal and the feeder school of my (attached) high school. Not incidentally, it, along with my high school, was also the target of antisemitic vandalism last May. But the sheer hate required to set fire to a library of an elementary school is mind-boggling. Thank G-d there were no children there at the time, and nobody got hurt:

United Talmud Torah School in St. Laurent was the target of an anti-Semitic attack Monday morning as the building was set on fire.

No one was hurt in the blaze that occurred at about 2:30 a.m. The extent of the damage is not known at this time, but it seems to have been limited to the school’s library. The school is located on de l’Eglise St.

Investigators found letters at the scene that were described as anti-Jewish hate messages. They also found signs of accelerants indicating the fire was deliberately set.

I’m truly horrified. I remember we used to have practice drills in grade school and high school, both for standard fires and for “security incidents”. It seemed normal that we had closed-circuit cameras in high school… we saw them as a tool to apprehend students skipping class, not antisemites with agendas. We truly, naively believed that the stories they taught us in Jewish history classes about hatred against Jews were just that – chapters in history books. It never occurred to us that our school was anything but safe.

I feel bad for the students who will have to face the fact that someone set fire to their school. No elementary school child should have that illusion of safety shattered.

Update: RDI has more, including the reaction of Jean Charest:

“De tels gestes sont intolérables, écrit M. Charest, incendier une école est déjà un acte vil, mais quand cela est fait au nom du racime ou de l’intolérance, chaque Québécois doit se lever et le dénoncer afin que cela ne se reproduise plus.”

Strong words from the Premier’s office. But unfortunately, this kind of hate has already recurred far too many times. And I fear it won’t be the last.

This hits way too close to home.

My old high school was vandalised over the weekend with antisemitic graffiti:

Staff from the United Talmud Torah elementary school and Herzliah High School in St. Laurent were busy removing anti-Semitic graffiti from their doors and windows yesterday.

The building that is shared by the two schools was struck by vandals overnight. They covered two entrances and several windows with messages including “Free Palestine” and “Die Sharon.”

This is extremely unsettling and disturbing to me, who spent 5 years dragging myself to that building on a daily basis. I may have felt imprisoned by the endless math, chemistry, and Talmud classes, watching the endless seconds tick off the clock until the final bell . . . but I never felt threatened.

Luckily it was just a bit of graffiti – most likely written by idiot kids – but nevertheless, the swastikas and disgusting slogans that were pictured in the print version of the Gazette are cause for concern in light of the rise in antisemitism around the world. It’s a reminder that, as secure as we may feel in our home and community, we’re never really entirely safe.