Canada’s most Jewish municipality ought to be a cudgel in the hands of those challenging the genocidal victim narrative. But anti-Zionists ignore, even suppress, discussion of the cloistered, well-off, Montreal suburb led by a warmongering racist.
Hampstead mayor Jeremy Levi clearly believes the life of a Jewish person is worth that of many thousands of Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians and others. Despite 150-year-old family roots in Canada, Levi considers himself part of a “Jewish nation” engaged in a sort of messianic war against Iran. Levi recently posted, “October 7, 2023 didn’t just happen in Israel — it shook every Jewish soul across the world. It reminded us that no matter where we live, we are still targets of the same hate. But June 13, 2025 was our answer. That’s when we stood up and said: Never again means now. We chose courage, we chose unity, and we chose to lead — not just for Israel, not just for Jews, but for humanity everywhere. The Jewish nation is no longer pleading for understanding. We are asserting our future. And the world is watching as we write it — unapologetically.”
Immediately after US forces dropped 14 massive bunker buster bombs and launched dozens of missiles against Iranian nuclear facilities on Saturday, Levi said Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize …in perpetuity. He posted, “The Nobel Foundation should retire the Peace Prize after awarding it to President Trump—because no future recipient will ever match the magnitude of what he achieved. His actions didn’t just promote peace; they redefined it. He secured a stability that will echo through generations. Anything awarded after him would be a shadow of this legacy—a mere gesture compared to history-making peace.”
The “peace” focused mayor also argues for killing “civilian supporters”. Levi recently posted, “Israel must strike first and strike hard, eradicating every security threat with relentless force. The mission must be relentless and unyielding until every adversary, including the civilian supporters, fully grasps the magnitude of their defeat. This is a battle for survival, and Israel must demonstrate unparalleled strength and resolve.”
Despite enough personal wealth to donate his mayoral salary to charity and being elected to an important position, Levi seems to have a poor grasp of historical or social reality. Two months into the genocide in Gaza he told me he’d back Israel killing 100,000 children because “good needs to prevail over evil”. More recently, he claimed, “The Nakba narrative is a complete fabrication” and “There has never been a country called Palestine. Israel has belonged to the Jewish nation for over 3,761 years and always will.”
Swimming in privilege, Levi reflects the views of many in the municipality of 7500. The inner Montreal suburb has adopted various measures to promote Israel’s genocide.
Hampstead is a wealthy, ethnically segregated, enclave. It traces its roots to Britain’s late-1800s Garden City movement, which was a move by London’s elite to move out of the city centre. Just west of Montréal, Hampstead was established by some of the wealthiest Canadians in 1914. The municipality doesn’t allow retail shops or industrial land in its boundaries and is one of the wealthiest municipalities in Québec. Until after the Second World War, it was almost entirely WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). Today over three-quarters of Hampstead’s 7,500 residents are Jewish and it is one of the most ethnically homogeneous areas in greater Montreal. The median income of the 2,500 households was $150,000 per year in 2021 (almost twice the Montreal wide median).
Pointing to Hampstead’s social characteristics ought to be a way to counter genocidal Jewish supremacists claiming victimhood. Instead of demonstrating the typical characteristics of a community discriminated against, the municipality highlights privilege and power.
But, when I first wrote about Hampstead I was aggressively criticized, including by leftists. A decade ago, I denounced open racism in the Canadian Jewish News, writing “In a recent Canadian Jewish News interview long time l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) professor Julien Bauer slurs Arabs and Muslims as he bemoans ‘antisemitism’ ‘In the corridors of UQAM, there are occasionally pro-Hamas demonstrations and antisemitic posters, but this is relatively rare,’ Bauer wrote in French. ‘At Concordia University, it’s an antisemitic festival every day of the year! This is normal because there are many more Arab and Muslim students at Concordia than UQAM.’” My 2016 “‘Antisemitism’: The Most Abused Word in Canada” concluded, “Montréal’s Jewish community has segregated itself geographically as well. Without retail shops in its boundaries, Hampstead is an affluent Montréal suburb that is three quarters Jewish. Four times larger than the adjacent Hampstead, Côte Saint-Luc is a 32,000-person municipality that is two thirds Jewish.
“According to Federation CJA, only 15%-17% of Jewish Montrealers live in intermarried (or common-law) households. For those under-30 it’s still only a quarter. (In Toronto, where Canada’s largest Jewish community resides, the self-segregation is slightly less extreme.)
“Inward looking and affluent, the Jewish community is quick to claim victimhood. But, like an out of control child, the major Jewish organizations need a time out. Without an intervention of some sort, the Jewish community risks having future dictionaries defining ‘antisemitism’ as ‘a movement for justice and equality.’”
The prescient commentary elicited a major backlash. When I went into further detail about the article and Hampstead with the leftist Jewish podcast Treyf it elicited even more criticism and a cancellation drive.
To the best of my knowledge, none of my critics wrote or spoke about Hampstead. Their inclination was (and still largely is) to bury the community’s dirty laundry in the closet. And to attack those who mention it. But this Jewish community has a racism and violence problem. And it’s hard to rectify any problem if you can’t acknowledge it.
Hampstead’s social characteristics make a mockery of those promoting genocide while claiming to be victims. And we should shove it in the racist genocide promoters’ faces.
Mayor Levi is a caricature. The warmongering supremacist fanatic representing a wealthy cloistered enclave claims to be a victim while calling for the killing of anyone who gets in the way of a foreign state. Incredible.
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