Jewish and Palestinian Montrealers talk peace, war and bringing the violence to an end

It was Friday Shabbat, the time of rest when adherents of the Jewish faith traditionally share a meal to celebrate the creation of heaven and earth. Earlier this month, people of different faiths gathered over challah, pita and hummus in the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal.

But it wasn’t your ordinary Shabbat dinner. It was “Shabbat for Gaza.” People made placards with their children of hearts in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

They called for a ceasefire, an end to the blockade on Gaza and the release of all Israeli and Palestinians held captive. 

Corey Balsam, the national co-ordinator of Independent Jewish Voices — an organization that advocates for the rights of Palestinians, helped organize the event. His grandfather survived the Holocaust but much of his family was killed in the Nazi genocide. 

Balsam feels “crushed” by the violence Hamas inflicted upon civilians in Israel in its Oct. 7 cross-border attack. As a father, he says he understands the fear that Montreal’s Jewish community is feeling after a synagogue and two Jewish schools were attacked in recent weeks. 

At the same time, Balsam, who has lived in the West Bank and has family in Israel, is “heartbroken” by the thousands of civilians — many children — killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza.

“This idea that there can be a military resolution to this issue is rather incomprehensible,” he said.

The pause in fighting gives him hope, he says, but he wishes Canada would do more to push for a long-term ceasefire. 

Israelis and Palestinians need to find a way to live side by side — whether it’s a two-state, one-state or other form of solution — without trying to subjugate each other, Balsam said.

Although the conflict is thousands of kilometres away, the streets of Montreal have become host to a debate in which narratives, dreams of statehood and even the interpretation of slogans clash. 

Amid a surge of hate crimes in the city, Jewish Montrealers like Balsam are extending a hand to Palestinians to find common ground.

But how peace is achieved — and what that peace looks like —  reflects a diversity of views within his community. Meanwhile, others in the Palestinian diaspora are looking for common cause with their Jewish neighbours to bring the bloodshed to an end. 

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