“They’re disputed areas, but it doesn’t make them out of reach to Israeli citizens or the Jewish community,” Reverend Hazan Daniel Benlolo said.
Two rival groups faced off outside the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal on Tuesday evening.
On one side, people were waving Israeli flags. On the other side was a much more vocal group waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Judaism yes, Zionism no” and “From the river to the sea.”
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One group was voicing their opposition to the Snowdon synagogue hosting a trade fair called The Great Israeli Real Estate Event.
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The group, Independent Jewish Voices — Montreal, has an issue with the trade fair selling properties in three Israeli settlements in the West Bank whose legality is the subject of fierce dispute. Those settlements are Neve Daniel, Ma’ale Adumim and Efrat.
“It’s not a synagogue event at all, the synagogue is just hosting a real-estate tour that is advertising properties, including properties in internationally recognized illegal Israeli settlements,” said Sarah Boivin from Independent Jewish Voices.
“We really did not want to be there (today). We started an email and call campaign from concerned community members, really, asking the synagogue to take leadership and be a force for unity right now and just cancel the event. It was as simple as that. And the synagogue issued a statement to its members yesterday saying this was intimidation and that they weren’t going to cancel the event.
“So, unfortunately, we have had to ask Jews in Montreal and our allies to gather today to really show that it’s unacceptable for our religious and cultural spaces to be used for that kind of purpose.”
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Reverend Hazan Daniel Benlolo from the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue contested the notion that these settlements are illegal.
“They’re disputed areas, but it doesn’t make them out of reach to Israeli citizens or the Jewish community,” Benlolo said. “It’s going to be disputed no matter what it is even if it’s not these areas. Tel Aviv is going to be disputed. Jerusalem is disputed. So what, does that mean that people have to stop doing everything and living?
“We’re going to agree to disagree … that they don’t want us to sell land and we’re in the position that we want to sell the land or the properties that are rightfully ours, rightfully (belong) to the Jewish people. It’s going to be a long-standing fight and it’s going to be disastrous for everybody at the end of the day because we have to come to a conclusion that the land of Israel is the land of our forefathers.”
Jason, who didn’t want to give his last name, stood on the side of the street with the group supporting the synagogue.
“They’re exercising their right to protest, but it’s really intimidation. Why are they allowed to intimidate us around our own institutions?”
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Simone, who also didn’t want to give a last name, criticized the police behaviour Monday night at the Federation CJA building.
“We couldn’t stand in front of our own building,” she said, adding she should be able to go to her neighbourhood synagogue without being warned about her safety.
On the other side of Lemieux St., along St-Kevin Ave., Nasser Sweileh held a banner protesting against “Israel’s apartheid.” He is half Jordanian, half Palestinian.
“We are not antisemitic. We’re anti-Zionist and anti-Israel. It proves that Zionism is not Judaism. How can we be anti-Jewish when Jewish people are organizing (the protest)?”
Boivin said it’s disappointing to hear the leader of a synagogue justifying this event.
“It’s a real shame for me to hear that kind of mentality coming from our community leaders,” Boivin said. “That to be Jewish we have to support the sale of land in illegal settlements or the massacre of 30,000 people (in Gaza) in a four-month period. We are really working as an organization to rebuild Jewish communities that are justice-oriented and that exist beyond Zionism because Zionism has never been equal to what Judaism is. Judaism is so much more, and I really think our community leaders are stirring division when they don’t give people the option to stand for human rights and still live as full Jews in the community.”
But Benlolo argues that to cancel the event is to give in to intimidation.
“I myself was even thinking at one point, ‘Why are we doing this right now?’” Benlolo said. “And we did have the intention to pull out … and then we changed our mind because if we cave in all the time, we’ll have to stop doing things we need to do just because we have some pressure from the Palestinians or from those that are extremists. If we cave in all the time, we might as well throw (in) the towel.
“So we decided, no this time we’re going to go ahead. I mean we’re doing so many things in the Jewish community that could seem antagonizing, but it’s not. It’s just living. It’s just going about our regular day.”
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TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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