MONTREAL — A trendy fine cuisine Lebanese restaurant in the heart of downtown Montreal recently removed a sign from its window describing itself as “kosher,” despite having no certification from the city’s main kashrut authority, apparently because a McGill University student intervened.
But the student and the restaurant’s owner have slightly different versions of events.
Twenty-year-old honours sociology student David Plotkin said he first spotted the sign – which had both the words “kosher” and “halal” (meaning “kosher” for Muslims) – as he strolled by on May 11 and saw it in the window of the Belyatchou restaurant on McGill College Avenue.
The restaurant, described on its website as a “resto-café-club-lounge,” is located directly across from McGill’s Roddick Gates, at the base of an office building housing the office of Premier Jean Charest.
Plotkin said he went in to speak to owner Ahmed El-Davar, who was in the middle of the hectic lunch period. Plotkin said he asked him “four times” if the restaurant’s food was kosher, and El-Davar’s reply was “yes.”
Plotkin said that even after he returned the following day and told El-Davar in more detail why his food was not kosher – he had no certification from the Vaad Ha’ir kosher certifying body and his menu includes shrimp and calamari – the owner, according to Plotkin, “blew me off” and his attitude was “condescending.”
The student then lodged a formal complaint with the Vaad, and the restaurant was subsequently visited by a city official, but El-Davar told The CJN that by that time, he had already taken down the sign. El-Davar, who is Muslim, said he had indicated to Plotkin that he intended to take down the sign, but was put off by what he perceived as Plotkin’s confrontational and “rude” attitude.
“I have many Jewish friends, and for 28 years Jewish people have been my customers,” he said. “I talk to people nicely because I want them to be my customers. We have enough hate in the world already [between Jews and Muslims].”
Plotkin, however, denies that El-Davar ever indicated that he would remove his sign. “If he had, I never would have gone to the Vaad,” Plotkin said. “All he ever told me was that he would speak to his ‘Jewish friends’ to see what they thought.”
Plotkin, however, did concede El-Davar’s point that he might have come across as more confrontational on his second visit to the restaurant, “after [El-Davar] blew me off the first time and patted my shoulder.”
El-Davar said: “To me, Muslims and Jews are the same. But there is a certain way to speak to people.”
Vaad executive director Rabbi Saul Emanuel declined to comment on the matter.
