'Please let our son’s sacrifice not be in vain': Mother of slain Jewish Montrealer says at pro-Israel rally

Thousands gathered in Ottawa in support of Jewish Canadians and Israel as its war with Hamas nears the two-month mark

Article content

OTTAWA — “Please let our son’s sacrifice not be in vain. Please let us honour his memory by standing up against the forces that seek to destroy the Jewish and Canadian values we hold so dear.”

That was the rallying cry from Raquel Look, the mother of 33-year-old Alexandre Look of Montreal, who was among those killed in the Hamas attack on the music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7. 

Advertisement 2

Article content

Article content

She was speaking to thousands of people who converged on a snowy Parliament Hill Monday in support of Jewish Canadians and Israel as its war with Hamas nears the two-month mark. 

Look and her husband Alain were two of five rally participants who lost or fear for the life of family members in the wake of the attack by Hamas. 

Larry Weinstein and daughter Ali also travelled to Ottawa from Toronto to press the government to do more to locate and secure the release of his sister, Judih Weinstein Haggai, the last known Canadian hostage still held by Hamas. 

In an interview, Larry Weinstein said it was incredibly disheartening that his sister was not among the 105 hostages released last week during the temporary truce in the war.

“We’re frustrated and want results,” he said. 

“I have a 95-year-old mother … who every day is starting at three news stations hoping to hear something that can give her hope. Everyday, she says, ‘All I want to know is is she dead or is she alive? And the waiting here is literally killing me’,” he added. 

Israel rally
Jewish students, community leaders, Liberal and Conservative MPs, grieving family members of people murdered or taken hostage by Hamas and a Holocaust survivor spoke of growing hate towards Jews in Canada during a rally on Parliament Hill on Dec. 4, 2023. Photo by Christopher Nardi /National Post

On Parliament Hill Monday, Israeli flags and signs featuring slogans such as “Free the hostages,” “Blame Hamas, not Israel” and “Jewish lives matter” dotted the landscape as a dozen speakers denounced rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment. 

Advertisement 3

Article content

Jewish students, community leaders, Liberal and Conservative MPs, grieving family members of people murdered or taken hostage by Hamas and a Holocaust survivor spoke of growing hate towards Jews in Canada and denounced the “barbaric” attack by Hamas. 

Holocaust survivor Nate Leipciger said that seeing images of the Oct. 7 massacre “transported” him back 80 years to when he watched his family being murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. 

“Being a 95-year-old survivor of the Holocaust is not easy, especially in this time of severe antisemitism and the unbridled hatred that we are confronted with,” Leipciger told the crowd. 

Speakers were occasionally interrupted by the crowd chanting “Am Yisrael Chai,” a Jewish solidarity anthem meaning “the people of Israel live.”

At one point, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, was interrupted by the crowd chanting “bring them home” after he called for the “unconditional” release of the 130 hostages still held by Hamas.

“Antisemitism is a great impersonator. Its current disguise is the social justice warrior wielding the popular sword of Israel condemnation. It is armoured also with effective weaponry: lies, misinformation, the double standard and the inappropriate and unfair comparison,” Moed said.

Advertisement 4

Article content

Some speakers also called on the Canadian government, and particularly Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, do more to support Israel during its offensive in Gaza. 

In a recent statement, Trudeau urged Israel to exercise “maximum restraint” in its military operations in Gaza because “the price of justice cannot be the continued suffering of all Palestinian civilians.” 

That irked some of those at the rally such as Ottawan Dan Harrel and Torontonian Tamara, who both said they were disappointed by the prime minister’s remarks. 

The rally was organized by Canada’s Jewish Federations, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and Jewish Federations of Canada-United Israel Appeal (JFC-UIA). 

“This historic show of collective strength in our nation’s capital will demonstrate to all Canadians that the Jewish community is resilient and will not cower in the face of the staggering antisemitism that is plaguing our streets, campuses and online spaces,” organizers promised in a statement. 

Related Stories

Advertisement 5

Article content

Earlier Monday, Adam Minsky, president and CEO of the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto, said 17 buses hired to take people from Toronto to the Ottawa rally didn’t show up.

“Those 17 buses were the responsibility of a particular sub-contracted company. Despite charging in full in advance and confirming its participation, the company did not send a single bus and has declined all communications while refusing to provide any explanation,” said Minsky.

Minsky said the last-minute cancellation combined with the silence from the bus company left them with no other conclusion than this was an act of antisemitism.

“We are driven to the view that this shameful decision is intended to disrupt our peaceful rally out of hatred toward Jews,” he said. “What happened today is sickening and outrageous. We will respond aggressively with every legal and public affairs tool at our disposal.”

Sunday, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim A. A. Khan, said that Hamas’s slaughter of over 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7 included “some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity” against Israeli civilians.

Advertisement 6

Article content

“In both Kibbutz Beeri and Kibbutz Kfar Azza, as well as at the site of the Nova Music Festival in Re’im, I witnessed scenes of calculated cruelty,” he wrote on Sunday after a visit to Israel. 

He also called on Hamas and “other terrorist organizations” to immediately release all remaining hostages taken during and since the Oct. 7 attack. 

“There can be no justification for the holding of any hostages, and in particular the egregious breach of fundamental principles of humanity through the taking and continued holding of children. Hostages cannot be treated as human shields or bargaining chips,” he wrote. 

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Article content