I grew up in the town of Hampstead. Not the one in London. My Hampstead is a tony, upper-class suburb of Montreal—a newer facsimile of London’s Heath, right down to the street names: Minden, Downshire, Harrow, and so on. Montreal’s Hampstead was the town upwardly mobile Jewish immigrant dreams were made of.
Ironically, Hampstead was originally established by a well-heeled Protestant banking class in the early 20th century and was once restricted to Jews. That only made it more desirable to Jewish families looking to escape the cold-water flats of the downtown Yiddish-speaking ghettos. There was a golf course and a curling club. Today, those have been replaced by sprawling McMansions with pools on double lots. It didn’t even take two generations for Jews to become the dominant group in Hampstead—it was already true when I was playing municipal tennis, baseball, football, and hockey in the mid-1970s.
Back then, the Jewish community still seemed politically cautious. The city was run by goyim. There was still a sense among many Jewish residents, that we were guests, and needed to remain respectful of our hosts.
No longer.
There’s a political storm brewing in my once-sleepy, well-heeled hometown. Alongside the Quebec fleur-de-lys and the Canadian maple leaf, the blue and white Star of David now flies proudly atop a flagpole outside Hampstead city hall. The Israeli flag actually replaced the town’s own flag. It was first hoisted in October 2023, in solidarity following the terrorist attack in Israel—and remains flying to this day.
At first, the gesture wasn’t particularly controversial. Today, with global suffering mounting and public opinion deeply polarized, it’s another story.
The mayor, Jeremy Levi, is an outspoken supporter of Israel. So, it seems, are most members of the town council and, presumably, a large part of the 60% Jewish majority. Levi has even advocated publicly for Israel to occupy and annex Gaza. When challenged about the Israeli flag at city hall, he’s defiant: “If they don’t like it, the citizens can vote me out at the next election.”
Not all residents agree. One of them, Adam Ben David—clearly also Jewish—feels the Israeli flag doesn’t reflect the full spectrum of political or religious views in Hampstead. In a letter co-signed by dozens of residents, he wrote: “Raising the flag at town hall effectively removes each Hampstead citizen’s ability to express their personal stance on Israel.”
Montreal-area city halls have long been sites of cultural and political tension. In the past, debate focused on whether religious symbols like Christmas trees and Hanukkah menorahs had any place on civic property. That controversy stems from Quebec’s “Quiet Revolution” in the 1960s—a cultural shift that moved the province away from the dominance of the Catholic Church and toward a proudly secular identity. That secularism has hardened over the decades, most recently in Bill 21, An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State, which banned public employees from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs and kippahs. The law remains under court challenge as a violation of individual rights.
Which makes Hampstead’s current controversy even more striking. In contrast to Quebec’s secularism, here we see public resources used to champion the identity of a particular religious or cultural group. It echoes something more American than Quebecois: the way Donald Trump has used government institutions to enforce symbolic loyalty, especially toward Israel, often under the banner of combating antisemitism.
To me, the Hampstead flag fight is a symptom of something larger: the localization of global conflict in the age of social media. We are being pulled into battles far from home in ways that feel increasingly personal. The stakes of daily life in our communities have shifted. What used to be local politics is now global ideology in miniature. And people seem to have lost their sense of proportion.
Some basic questions might help restore that sense:
Is it appropriate for the flag of a foreign country to fly in front of city hall?
If we do that, should we expect to see other flags—like the Palestinian flag —raised in front of other city halls? How would Jewish people living in those communities feel then?
Shouldn’t mayors, and all elected officials, represent all of their constituents, not just those who voted for them?
If members of any group—Jews included—choose to take strong public political stances (which is absolutely their right), should they be surprised when others push back forcefully? Do they still get to label all opposition as antisemitic?
I don’t fully agree with Ben David’s argument that raising the Israeli flag “removes” residents’ ability to express themselves. Individuals can and do fly whatever flags they like on their private property. I, for instance, have had a bright yellow “Bring The Hostages Home” sign in my front window since late October 2023. I feared that it might provoke vandalism, but vowed not to take it down until every hostage was freed. I never imagined that, nearly two years later, it would still be there. It’s never been vandalized.
But while individuals can express themselves freely, public institutions are different. They are meant to unify, not divide. City halls are supposed to belong to all of us. And do we really want our communities to become a patchwork of flags and symbols on every corner, each staking out some tribal claim?
There was a time when political leaders understood that it was their job to foster unity, to build a sense of shared belonging and sense of community. That now seems increasingly rare.
In the end, this isn’t just about one flag in one suburb. It’s about how we live together when the lines between local and global, identity and ideology, neighbor and enemy, are no longer clear.
