About a dozen people arrived at the Cavendish Mall around 7 p.m. on April 7, and assumed their positions outside the doorway of the CinéStarz multiplex theatre.
It was because the shopping centre, located in the Montreal suburb of Côte Saint-Luc, was playing host to a special Monday night screening of the documentary film about events triggered by what happened in Israel exactly 18 months earlier.
October 8, directed by Wendy Sachs, documents the global explosion in antisemitism—much of it seemingly coordinated—in the hours following the terrorist attack on Israel from Gaza. While it is opened at select theatres across Canada this past weekend, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) reserved and promoted this time slot specifically for its staff and supporters to attend.
The protesters carried three banners, including one that read “Zionism smells of Nazism.” Most sported keffiyehs and nearly all had their faces covered. Mall patrons quickly reacted, many hurling insults at protesters while the group chanted slogans.
Montreal police showed up within minutes, at first from local Station 9, and then more from the tactical intervention squad.
In all, some 40 officers were in the mall, setting up two lines separating some 80 moviegoers and bystanders from protesters, with mall security and Federation CJA’s Community Security Network keeping people away from the police line.
Within an hour, Côte Saint-Luc mayor Mitchell Brownstein, who was hosting a city council meeting across the street, posted in a local chat group that he had asked police to remove the protesters, insisting that they are engaged in illegal activities including the use of masks as per the Criminal Code, “and this is totally unacceptable in our city.”
Many patrons expressed outrage at the appearance of the group, whose banners sported a Star of David composed with a red triangle, the latter a common symbol used to denote Hamas targeting, along with references to Nazism. An elderly man approached a cop keeping the groups apart and asked, “How can you allow them to bring such hate here?”
“It’s their right,” said the officer. “It’s a matter of their language if it’s threatening or not. We are listening.” The man told The CJN: “I lost my family in the Holocaust, and they come here with those words. I have no confidence in the police, they don’t understand anything, they don’t even live here. What do they care.”
Côte Saint-Luc lawyer Michael Hollander, who has worked with attorney and Mount-Royal Conservative candidate Neil Oberman in the courts to obtain injunctions to protect institutions and students on campus, says he sadly foretold this in December. “I went to city council and told them to show leadership. And I went on social media urging them to pass a mask bylaw. I said that these people are coming here in spring, and they need to do something about it. To deter it.”
My statement on what has taken place at Cavendish Mall in my riding tonight. pic.twitter.com/gQnEdoKtkN
— Neil G. Oberman (@NeilOberman) April 8, 2025
After an hour, police moved the group about 10 meters away, five officers standing guard in front of them, as another group of onlookers who came into the mall from another entrance were kept away by another police line.
Occasional chants and cheers erupted from protesters while groups of young people showed up playing Israeli music on their phones, and at one point a group standing on the stairs entering the movie theatre started to chant “Bibi! Bibi! Bibi!”
Hamas sympathizers attempted to disrupt a viewing of the October 8th documentary film at the Cavendish Mall in Montreal, QC.
— Leviathan (@l3v1at4an) April 8, 2025
If you want to see terrorist loyalists continue to disrupt anything they disagree with, please vote Liberal in this upcoming Canadian election. pic.twitter.com/IIJdboZ9iu
Irony observed in real time
CIJA Quebec vice-president Eta Yudin was on-site for this special screening: “They came to a movie about antisemitism to incite antisemitism. It’s clear what their agenda is, what they’re here for. They are just a handful, but they obviously came with a goal to intimidate harass and incite hatred against the Jewish community.”
“Ironically,” she added, “and it should be noted, they’re just proving the point. The screening is about a movie that shows the explosion of antisemitism, incitement, hatred on campus and in the streets targeting Jews. And here they are chanting the same chants, doing the same things, trying to intimidate. When people declare so clearly what their intentions are and what their agenda is, we have to listen and understand what they’re trying to do. But we’re not going to be intimidated. We’ll continue.”
Police continued to keep groups apart in a relatively calm setting. There was no lockdown of any type, no violence, and people were free to leave at anytime, albeit through designated exits. But it was clear to many present that a new psychological threshold had been crossed by protesters on this, the 548th day since Oct. 7, 2023. “This is the Shmall,” said one movie-goer to The CJN. “It takes a level of brazenness to come here and protest like that at this event.”
A woman leaving the site after angrily raising two middle fingers at the protesters, said “watch how they’ll do it again. They got their clicks and now they feel very proud of themselves.” She agreed the psychological barrier had been breached, with such imagery and language used in the mall, an iconic locale known for decades as a family-friendly oasis of calm—even boredom—for area residents, especially the many elderly who spend their days and evenings there in the heart of one of the most Jewish communities in Canada.
“It’s the hypocrisy of what they stand for,” said D’Arcy Mcgee MNA Elisabeth Prass, who came over when she heard what was happening. “There’s a movie on antisemitism which we can’t deny has become a worldwide phenomenon in the last year or so, and they come here and act out antisemitism in real life. It’s like bad reality TV. The chutzpah to show up here in a Jewish neighbourhood and confront people? When they protest, do we confront them every time? Does anybody try and stop their protest? They have the right to protest but people don’t have a right to go to a movie? Where is the line?”
As Côte Saint-Luc residents tried to go to the movie theatre at Cavendish Mall tonight, pro-Palestinian protesters gathered inside the mall to intimidate and harass them. I echo the wishes of the CSL mayor that they be removed from the private property. Enough is enough! pic.twitter.com/c59LIg3EPN
— Elisabeth Prass (@elisabethprass) April 8, 2025
Prass said it’s clear there have been problems in how incidents have been managed, with particular criticism levelled towards the city, the Montreal police, and a lack of leadership “from above.” She did say however, that it was heartening to see the community unbowed. “How many people have just in the last 10 minutes shown up because they want to say we are here and let us live our lives.”
A mother of two young children, Prass said, “this is not the reality I want my kids to be used to. To think it’s normal that we can’t go to the movies one night because we happen to be Jewish, and there may be pro-Palestinian protesters there… They’re taking it to a whole other level.
“There’s freedom of speech and the right to protest, but this isn’t protesting. This is intentionally confronting and harassing and trying to get people to change their way of life.”
Other than chants, however, few protesters spoke.
Toronto trend comes to Montreal
Rabbi Reuben Poupko of Beth Israel Beth Aaron came over from his synagogue—which is located next door—when he heard what was unfolding. “It’s clear. These are not anti-war protesters. They are chanting battle cries; when you scream ‘long live the intifada’, you’re explicitly calling for the murder of Jews and the rape of Jewish girls. That’s what you’re calling for, and that’s what people don’t understand. This is their purpose, to intimidate, annoy and bother. And to some degree it’s working. Police are intimidated, prosecutors are intimidated, university administrators are intimidated, and journalists are intimidated. It’s wearing off a bit, and universities are doing marginally better this year than in the past.
“People are beginning to realize that coddling these people in no way helps,” he said. “It’s a waste of time.”
Coming to the mall in the heart of Côte Saint-Luc is new. “In Toronto, we’ve seen this more frequently, when they demonstrate around synagogues and in Jewish neighbourhoods, with kosher restaurants that have been harassed. They’ve moved the needle. But ultimately at the end of the day, these protests pose no threat to the Jewish community. People need to understand that, and I’m not blasé about it: Since Oct. 7 and all the demonstrations and all the attacks, our synagogues are full. No one has pulled their kid out of a Jewish school. The Jewish community is resilient and strong.”
These things do pose a threat however, to Montreal, Quebec, and Canada, said Rabbi Poupko: “They tear at the fabric of our society. And unless Canadian politicians understand that this is a threat to them, they won’t act the way they should… There’s no question that political leadership must be much more forceful than it has been; there’s no question political leadership plays a role here.
The police cannot simply remove protesters from a private place of business, one officer told The CJN, “and this is not a completely private place. It’s a private place with public access. If they were inside the movie theatre we can act, but if they’re just standing there, they’re allowed.”
The CJN asked mall managers if they had asked police to remove the group. “Several times already” one replied, as both quickly walked away.
Protesters were finally escorted out of a side door at approximately 9 p.m., some two hours after they arrived, and made some noise upon exiting as onlookers applauded.
The local station chief arrived on the scene and spoke with The CJN, confirming what one of his officers said earlier. “They’re not committing a crime” said Commander Mathieu Fournier-Landry. “If they go into a store and block people from working or shopping, or if they threaten or commit a criminal act, then we can do something… It’s a matter of assessment and judgment.”
Ultimately the protesters left without being forced out physically, after a brief huddle among police, community leaders and mall management. Fournier-Landry saying it was done with “the power of persuasion. But I’m not going to tell you what my tactics are.”
CIJA’s Eta Yudin told The CJN the demonstrators were looking for attention “and they’re getting a lot of it. They’re going to say, ‘We did it,’ but what did they do? The film is going on. People are here. What they did was prove their agenda is to intimidate and harass the Jewish community.
“This couldn’t be clearer. They couldn’t have picked a better movie to prove their point.”
October 8 is now playing five times each day at CinéStarz in Cavendish Mall, where the former Cineplex property was fully renovated in 2022. The eight-screen theatre’s website more prominently advertises late-April screenings of Pink Floyd at Pompeii—MCMLXXII, a restored version of the 1972 film of a performance at the ancient Roman ampitheatre by the British rock band, which was then fronted by current anti-Israel agitator Roger Waters.
Rabbi Yisroel Bernah and Emmy winning Matty Matheson talk about Kosher as a spiritual diet at Cavendish mall food court. #kosherfood #mattymatheson #rabbi #judaism #jewishlife #kosher #kosherfoodie #jewish #koshertravel pic.twitter.com/vEwP9hFvIp
— Rabbi Yisroel Bernath (@montrealrabbi) January 22, 2025
