The Montreal Jewish father who was beaten Aug. 8 while taking his daughters to a city park has suffered a broken nose and facial bruises, and, according to a spokesperson for the city’s haredi community, the victim, along with his three children who were with him, “are very traumatized.”
The victim is reportedly recovering at home after an unknown assailant attacked him at around 2:45 p.m. Some of the incident was captured on video by a pedestrian as it took place in a small park at the corner of Beaumont and de l’Épée avenues, in the Park Extension neighbourhood.
Mayer Feig, a member of the Quebec Council of Hasidic Jews and a volunteer paramedic who was not present at the scene, but received the video through a community WhatsApp group chat, posted the video on social media on Friday. He spoke to the victim.
According to Feig, the victim and family live in the area. The father and his three daughters had been out doing errands, including getting a car wash and visiting a Service Canada outlet located on Beaumont Avenue in a building across the street from the small urban park. The building also houses Vanier College’s campus in Park Extension.
The victim was wearing a white dress shirt and dark pants. He looked visibly religious.
While The CJN has learned the identity of the victim, we have agreed not to make it public yet at the request of the community. He is believed to be a member of the Skver haredi sect, originally from New York, and is married to a woman from Montreal.
Today in Montreal Jewish father with 3 kids beaten in an unprovoked attack, seemingly by a disturbed person, words have consequences. @Val_Plante @SPVM why did it take for the SPVM over an hour to respond? pic.twitter.com/MufsGoDMjW
— Mayer Feig (@mayerfeig) August 8, 2025
While the 29-second video does not show the start of the violent encounter, Feig spoke to the victim and described what happened.
The family was in the municipal park called Parc Beaumont-De-L’Épée, which has some play structures, he said. It also has a water sprinkler or some kind of splash pad.
“As you can see on the video, there is a sprinkler system there. What seemed to be a disturbed person came over and took some water and started spraying at him and his kids. So the father, you know, naturally, protecting his kids and himself, asked the guy, ‘What are you doing? What’s up?’,” Feig said.
“And [the victim] did have a cup of water in his hand. He doesn’t remember if he instinctively sprayed back or not, but then this guy just came in and started attacking him viciously in front of his kids.”
The victim fell to the pavement. The video shows his attacker crouching down and punching him about five or six times, while the father kicks with one leg but doesn’t make contact.
After a few seconds, the attacker stops, while the distressed daughters call out and try to help their father stand up. The attacker then gathers some items from the ground, puts them in a red fabric grocery bag and leaves the scene.
Feig said he knows the victim personally, as the man had worked for his brother-in-law’s business previously.
While there were other people in the park at the time of the attack, nobody intervened to try to stop it or to catch the attacker. However, Feig praised one woman who had the presence of mind to film the incident and call for help.
“I think this bystander that took the video actually called the police,” Feig told The CJN in an interview Aug. 10 from the Catskills resort area of New York state, where the Montreal leader is volunteering for a Jewish emergency first response agency.
“And if I’m not mistaken, it’s even an Arab woman. And she went over and she shared the video with [the victim]. And she called the police and they waited for a while. And then he, the victim himself, called the police.”
Politicians react to ‘unacceptable attack’
On X, the video has more than 600,000 views so far, and has provoked messages of condemnation from many Canadian politicians, including Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The attack on a Jewish father in Montreal late yesterday, in front of his own children, is an appalling act of violence. Everyone in Canada has an inalienable right to live in safety.
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) August 9, 2025
My thoughts are with the victim and his family as they recover, and my support is with law…
Several Liberal cabinet ministers followed suit, including Anita Anand, Evan Solomon, Gary Anandasangaree and Montreal-area MPs Anna Gainey and Anthony Housefather. Also weighing in have been the Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, deputy Conservative leader Melissa Lantsman, and Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante.
“I am troubled by the violent and unacceptable attack against a father from the Jewish community,” Plante wrote, in French, on X. “My thoughts go to the victim and his loved ones. The Montreal police will do everything to shed light on this troubling event.”
Support for the victim and his family has also been pouring in from Israel—including from Israeli leaders, Feig told The CJN.
According to Feig, Israeli president Isaac Herzog and foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar have been in contact with Montreal’s Jewish community.
On Aug. 9, Sa’ar called the “appalling” incident “shocking and stomach-turning” in a post on X.
“These are images reminiscent of dark periods of Jewish persecution. The Canadian government must do more to fight antisemitism!”
The incident shown in this video is shocking and stomach-turning.
— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) August 9, 2025
A Jewish father was beaten in front of his daughter in Montreal, Canada, yesterday.
These are images reminiscent of dark periods of Jewish persecution.
This is appalling.
The Canadian government must do more to… pic.twitter.com/6whsYit19W
Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, also reportedly reached out to the community.
“Shocked to learn of this incident against a Jewish man with young children in Montreal’s Villeray—Saint-Michel—Parc-Extension borough on Friday afternoon,” Moed posted on X on Aug. 9.
Some community members are concerned that it took so long for police to arrive, despite receiving two calls—one from the woman and one from the injured victim. The victim claims it took over half an hour.
The victim was treated in hospital and is now recovering at home.
Several other witnesses can be seen in the footage of the incident. Feig said, as a trained paramedic himself, he personally would have known how to de-escalate the situation, and would have tried to stop the attack.
“But I would also be mindful of, you know, the guy could just come and hit me, too,” Feig said. “It’s very hard to judge those people, but I would have intervened.”
As for the victim, Feig is appealing to the community to help the family out as the father and his daughters recover. The father and the children will likely need therapy, which will require financial assistance, he said.
“He’s extremely traumatized. So are his kids, to the fact that they don’t even want to hold his hands now,” Feig said, explaining that the children are afraid to go anywhere with their father again, in case they face more trouble.
“It’s a trauma that they went through and this is how it’s manifesting at this time,” Feig added. Media reports say the children are aged three, six and nine.
Reminder of Jewish ‘vulnerability’: Federation CJA
Montreal’s Jewish Federation has already been in touch with the victim’s community to offer assistance after the “heinous act”, which they’ve called a “chilling reminder of the rising tide of antisemitism that continues to threaten our community’s safety and dignity,” said Yair Szlak, the president and CEO of Montreal’s Federation CJA, in a statement issued Aug. 10.
“To the victim and his family: you are not alone. We are with you—in grief, in outrage, and in unwavering solidarity,” Szlak said.
The fact that the assault on the father happened in broad daylight in front of his young children in the heart of Montreal, he said, is a “stark and painful illustration of the vulnerability Jewish Montrealers face today.”
He pointed out that the attacker was seen picking up the victim’s kippah, and throwing it away “with contempt,” Szlak said, a gesture which the community feels was “deliberate, dehumanizing and deeply symbolic.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) said the unprovoked attack on the Jewish father, right before Shabbat, has shaken the community and “must not go unanswered.”
“No more ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Authorities must hold the attacker accountable, and leaders at all levels of government must confront this dangerous escalation,” said a statement posted Friday afternoon, and shared with The CJN by CIJA’s Quebec media relations officer Julien Corona.
While Szlak and other Jewish leaders acknowledged the public condemnations of the incident, they expect a full investigation and “swift justice” and action from all levels of government.
That starts with the Montreal police, according to Rabbi Saul Emanuel, the executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Montreal.
Rabbi Emanuel told The CJN that the Montreal police need to provide patrols on a regular basis, and not just occasionally, such as on Jewish holidays or large community events.
“We do constantly meet with the SPVM [Le Service de police de la Ville de Montréal]. We thank them for the work that they do, but, unfortunately, it’s not enough work. And we have mentioned this time and time again,” he said in an interview from Israel, where he was visiting family when his phone began pinging with news of Friday’s attack.
“We are living in a world where we are constantly under attack and every single one of us is a moving target,” said Rabbi Emanuel. “And we saw that on Friday.”
Montreal police report rise in hate crimes and hate incidents
In June, Montreal police reported having been deployed to provide staffing at 676 crowd control situations and 311 events connected to the Middle East and Israel-Hamas conflict, between Oct. 7, 2023 and March 20, 2025. Reports say the force has a 300-person shortfall, and the budget overtime to pay for all the protests topped $9 million.
The latest statistics about hate crimes and hate incidents in Montreal showed a total of 577 cases in 2024, up 6 percent for hate crimes and 18 percent for hate incidents, respectively. Montreal police did not release specific demographics of the victims. However, The CJN was told that in the year between Oct. 7, 2023 and Oct. 2024, the Jewish community was targeted in 212 of 287 cases, or 74 percent.
“Our community demands concrete action—enhanced security, increased vigilance, and a firm commitment to confronting hate,” said Szlak.
For Mayer Feig, the issue is not only a lack of patrols, but unchecked, constant incitement of hatred against Israel that fosters attacks on Jews in Canada.
“The last year-and-a-half to two years, with all that’s been going on [in] the streets every single day, has a toll. It affects people’s opinions and people’s minds,” Feig said. “People are going to start being beaten in the street. You know, so much negativity, so much anti-Jews in the media, in the streets, and nobody’s stood up. It’s just being allowed to continue.”
Feig said what happened has chilling echoes of the Nazi genocide of Jews in Europe, something he shared recently with a federal politician who he declined to name.
“I told that member that, you know, I’m starting to understand how a Holocaust could have happened 80 years ago,” Feig said. “So much going on, so much ridicule, so much attack, and nobody’s speaking up and nobody’s standing up. And it’s just heartbreaking.”
The attack came nine days after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada would recognize Palestine as an independent state at the UN General Assembly meetings in September. On July 30, Carney decried the humanitarian crisis and hunger facing Palestinians in Gaza, and slammed Israel for not providing enough food and supplies to prevent the situation. Carney also demanded that Hamas return the hostages and play no role in a future government of Palestine.
During his media announcement last week, Carney repeated a campaign promise to pass “bubble legislation” that would make it a crime to stage protests directly outside places of worship and schools belonging to vulnerable communities.
Public parks of course, would not be on the list, and such a law could likely not have kept Friday’s attack from happening.
Feig said bubble legislation won’t stop attacks if protesters receive carte blanche for hurling antisemitic slogans that directly target Israelis and Jewish Canadians.
He gives the example of “From the river to the sea”: “We all know what it means. They all know what it means. Yet there’s no way to find it to be threatening under the Criminal Code. The ‘globalized intifada’, what does that mean? We all know what intifada means. Yet these chants are going on daily for two years already,” Feig said.
“And even though this person might seem to have been a disturbed person, but when you see images and when you see attacks on the community daily, it could affect even a person like that to go out and act.”
The Jewish Community Council of Montreal, which represents more than 80 synagogues and Jewish private schools, decided not to issue a statement just yet. According to Rabbi Emanuel, it’s long past time for statements. Instead, he challenged the prime minister to move quickly to reform the criminal justice system, which was another Liberal campaign promise.
“It is great that the prime minister of Canada comes out with a statement, whilst at the same time supporting other statements regarding the war that is going on,” Rabbi Emanuel said, referring to Carney’s repeated rebukes and condemnations of Israel since the new Liberal leader won the April 2025 election.
“So it’s great to put out statements. What action are you, Prime Minister Carney, taking to show and ensure that such a thing never happens again? What action are you taking to make sure that when this person is found, he doesn’t get out on bail? What action are you taking to make sure that when this person is arrested, he’s given the full throttle of the law?”
The CJN reached out to Montreal’s police service for the latest information, but had not heard back by press time. A police source with knowledge of the case but who was not authorized to speak on the record to the media told The CJN the suspect’s image is already everywhere across the Island of Montreal.
“Every cop I know wants to find him and this is a priority,” the source said.
Montreal police have a tip line, too.
Federation officials are urging Jewish residents to be extra careful in the wake of Friday’s attack. Their private Community Security Network (CSN) is “actively monitoring the situation,” according to a statement from Szlak.
“We urge all community members to remain vigilant,” he said.
If you witness suspicious activity or feel unsafe, contact Federation CJA at (514) 343-4343 or through their website.
“Jews in Montreal are not afraid. We are resilient and resolute and demand our elected officials to do better to protect our rights as citizens,” said Szlak.
The Abraham Global Peace Initiative, based in Toronto, is offering a financial reward for any information that would lead to the arrest of the suspect.
In a news release issued Sunday, the Jewish organization blamed the Canadian government’s announcement of support for a Palestinian state as a catalyst of such attacks.
“AGPI has warned Canada’s government that continuing siding with Hamas—especially by supporting a Palestinian state—is reckless and will further legitimize antisemitic violence here at home,” said AGPI founder Avi Benlolo in a statement.
While the organization did not say what the size of the reward is, and did not reply to an email for details, they are urging people to come forward with any information.
“We call on the public, the authorities, and leaders at all levels to take action against this act and to take every measure to ensure that Jewish Canadians can live in safety and dignity,” said Benlolo.
Listen to The CJN’s North Star podcast for more reaction from Jewish community leaders in Montreal:
