By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban
The City of Côte St. Luc held an emotional ceremony last week to inaugurate the Alexandre Look Place greenspace at the eastern tip of Kildare Road, in between Beth Chabad Synagogue and Bialik High School (now JPPS Bialik), which Alexandre attended. Councillor Mike Cohen, who has the Toponymy portfolio, suggested the location, which is in his District 2.
Look, who was a CSL resident, was killed by Hamas terrorists last Oct. 7 at the Nova music festival as he defended others. Two plaques at the park provide information on Alexandre and the overall attack in which 1,200 people in Israel were killed. The ceremony took place just after the end of the Jewish 11-month mourning period and the day before Alexandre’s 34th birthday.
Hundreds of people attended the ceremony, including his parents Raquel and Alain Look, many of his friends, Israeli Consul-General Paul Hirschson, Mayor Mitchell Brownstein and members of CSL council, D’Arcy McGee MNA Elisabeth Prass, Rabbi Reuben Poupko, Cantor Daniel Benlolo, Federation CJA’s Yair Szlak and Steve Sebag, Hampstead councillor Leon Elfassy, former CSL Mayor Robert Libman and former councillors Allan Levine and Glenn Nashen. A message was read from Mount Royal MP Anthony Housefather announcing that he is nominating Look for a federal medal to acknowledge his bravery during the terrorist attack.
“We know that Alexandre is with us, giving Alain, Kayla and I the strength to go on,” a tearful Raquel Look told the gathering. “Together, let us honour Alex’s memory by rededicating ourselves to the pursuit of peace and repairing the world. By standing firm against hatred, antisemitism and violence, and by being loud and proud!”
Brownstein and his wife Elaine met the Look family since before Alexandre and their own first child was born, at pre-natal classes.
“This was home for Alex, particularly in all those formative years,” the Mayor said. “It’s very touching and personal to me, and for all those who knew him and came to know him in the last 11 months, I know it’s very personal to you.”
Hirschson said he got to know Alexandre through his conversations with his parents.
“It’s an ambiguous time — we are prosecuting a war and we are trying to secure the release of hostages,” he said. “It’s an ambiguous time where we mourn Alex and celebrate him at the same time in between his school and congregation, where he will be both mourned and celebrated for a long, long time.”
Prass said Oct. 7 “will forever be burned in our minds, and so will the tragic news of the loss of one of our own. As a community, we collectively mourn his loss.”
Rabbi Poupko said the “most important memorial to Alex is how we all behave, and how we are inspired by his sacrifice and by what we are willing to do for the Jewish people.”
Szlak, whose organization worked tirelessly to bring Look home, said that “not only is it important to talk about how tragic Alexandre’s death was, but how amazing his life was. When we sit here as a people, we still haven’t had a chance to mourn what happened since Oct. 7. We’re in the middle of what’s going on to our people, here at home or in Israel, and there’s no closure.
“We’re facing unprecedented times — antisemitism, days which we all are not sure how to handle, but Alex gives us a light. Let’s celebrate our Jewish life, never cower, never stand down.”
Cantor Benlolo concluded the ceremony by singing a memorial prayer and the national anthems of Canada and Israel. n