MONTREAL –These are busy times in Quebec for organizations like B’nai Brith Canada. Just ask Heidi Oppen, only four months into her role as regional director of the highly respected human rights body.

In the last few weeks alone members of the Lubavitch Jewish community in the Côte des Neiges district of Montreal have felt targetted, swastikas have surfaced in the borough of Outremont, windows have been shattered at a Jewish day school and synagogue, a taxi driver has gone to court to contest six tickets he received for having items such as Jewish religious artifacts in his vehicle and a prominent journalist launched a complaint of antisemitism against a popular French-language CBC television program.

Yes, it is called baptism under fire for Oppen. If previous years are any indication, the situation may only get worse as we approach the summer. Who can forget the xenophobia and antisemitic vandalism that surfaced in Quebec’s Laurentian mountain towns targetting Chassidic Jews?

Antisemitism is by no means rampant here. The Jewish community continues to enjoy a high-profile leadership role in the city of Montreal on many fronts. Fundraising organizations flourish and Jewish personalities remain front and centre in the business, medical and political sectors. Tensions between Jews and Muslims at Concordia University, which reached a fever pitch only a few years ago, seem to have toned down for now.

In last week’s Jewish Tribune we told the story of the local Lubavitch community and how some of their members have been targetted for violence. This included a 12-year-old boy, a pregnant woman and a man walking home from synagogue at 8:30 in the morning. Rabbi Mendel Marasow, the executive director of Beth Rivkah Academy, went as far as to say that he is afraid to leave any of his children out alone during the day. The police will be holding special meetings very shortly to try to assist the Lubavitch community in learning how to better report such incidents.

Swastikas rear their ugly head in different parts of the community every few months. Are they the work of young hoodlums? Probably, but it is nonetheless disturbing – especially to the city’s large Holocaust survivor community.

The story of cab driver Arieh Perecowicz is nothing short of embarrassing for this city. He was fined $1,615 by the city’s taxi bureau because of the Jewish artifacts in his car. Two weeks ago Perecowicz went to court and defended himself on charges over six fines for the offence of having objects not required for the taxi to be in service. Among those objects were a framed photograph of his daughter and a Hebrew prayer card and mezuzahs (parchments inscribed with prayers) embedded in the posts between front and rear seats. The charges were actually filed in 2006 and only made public recently. It is as silly a story as when Quebec’s notorious language cops tried to ban Passover Matzah from the shelves because the packaging was only in English.

Finally, for this week, we bring you the story of Ian Halperin. He is a flamboyant Montreal-born journalist, author and filmmaker who has gained worldwide headlines for his book and soon to be released film on the late Michael Jackson.

Halperin, who now lives in the United States and blogs at ianundercover.com, has filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) following his appearance on the popular CBC French TV show program Tout le monde en parle. Halperin said he was treated unfairly by co-host Dany Turcotte and panellist Claude Robinson, whom he accuses of subjecting him to “racism, antisemitism and ridicule.”

Halperin, whose father is a Holocaust survivor, told me he’s had more than 500 letters of support from people. “The remarks were made on Yom HaShoah,” he said. “They were unacceptable and highly offensive. Dany Turcotte said he wanted to burn my books page by page in a fire. I have retained one of the top US human rights lawyers who will sue Radio Canada to the tune of $500 million for a hate crime. The story has filtered into the US and as a no.1 bestselling New York Times author I must take precautions.”

The only good news of late had to do with former Premier Jacques Parizeau, whom readers will recall for blaming “Jews and the ethnic vote” for the 1995 Quebec referendum loss by the separatists. Well, Jacques recently fell ill, but was nursed back to health. Where? At the Jewish General Hospital.

Mike Cohen is the Tribune’s Quebec bureau chief. He can be reached at info@mikecohen.ca.