‘You f***ing Jew’: Montreal restaurant targeted by antisemitic graffiti
A Montreal restaurateur says she was shocked to find her business targeted by antisemitic graffiti — the first such incident in more than three decades of operating on the city’s well-known Saint-Laurent Boulevard.
On the morning of February 4, Ilene Polansky, owner of the seafood restaurant Maestro, arrived to open her establishment as she had done for the past 34 years. Instead, she found hateful graffiti spray-painted across her window.
“I came in around four o’clock and I saw purple writing on the window,” Polansky recalled. “I went outside to look, and there it was — ‘You F***ing Jew’ with a Star of David.”
The message left the longtime business owner stunned.
“You feel like, how does someone do this?” she said. “Nobody deserves to be called something like that.”
Polansky reported the incident to the Montreal Police Service (SPVM), which confirmed that a hate-crime investigation was opened. However, the case has since been closed due to a lack of evidence.
“Nothing was really done because the cameras weren’t working,” she explained. “They couldn’t retrace the steps of someone coming to the window and writing it.”
The closure of the investigation is particularly troubling, she says, since signs along Saint-Laurent Boulevard indicate that the area is under video surveillance. However, it appears that none of the cameras were functioning at the time.
“I’m really surprised,” Polansky said. “There are so many clubs here, and at three o’clock in the morning it’s a crazy place. The cameras should be working — they should definitely fix that.”
While she insists the incident did not make her fearful, Polansky acknowledges that many in the Jewish community are increasingly concerned amid a rise in antisemitic incidents across Canada.
“There’s always concern,” she said. “Antisemitism has been around for many, many years. Some people now are scared to even wear a Jewish star around their neck.”
Despite the vandalism, Polansky says her decision to close Maestro later this month is simply a matter of timing.
“I’m almost 65,” she said. “I don’t see myself doing this for another 10 years.”
Still, after more than three decades in the neighbourhood, she says the restaurant has become something of a local institution.
“People know Maestro,” Polansky said. “It always brought people to this area.”
Alexandra Lavoie
Quebec based Journalist
Alexa graduated with a degree in biology from Laval University. Throughout her many travels, she has seen political instability as well as corruption. While she witnessed social disorder on a daily basis, she has always been a defender of society’s most vulnerable. She’s been around the world several times, and now joins Rebel News to shed light on today’s biggest stories.
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