City Councillor Mike Cohen stood outside Beth Chabad Côte Saint-Luc on Tuesday morning, sharing on social media about Michoel Moshe Mizrachi AH, a member of the Côte Saint-Luc community who was killed during Monday’s shooting in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood.

“The entire community is in shock,” Cohen said. Mizrachi lived in Côte Saint-Luc and was a member of the Beth Chabad congregation there. He made suits for a living and was in the Côte-des-Neiges area near Marché P.A. and the Hilton Hotel for business when the shooting broke out. He had been planning to meet up with his son or some friends and had mentioned he might stop for a coffee at Starbucks. That never happened.

Cohen said Mizrachi had been dealing with poor health but was known to be stoic about it. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Cohen said.

The shooting unfolded Monday around 11:30 a.m. at the corner of De Courtrai Avenue and Trans Island Avenue, just outside a strip of kosher stores, the Chabad-Lubavitch MADA Community Centre, and several synagogues and Jewish day schools, including some of Chabad’s flagship educational institutions in Quebec.

Witnesses said the gunman, dressed in military camouflage, exchanged heavy fire with police before being shot dead by responding officers. Reports indicate the gunman’s target was the police, not the Jewish community.

An emergency alert reached cellphones across Montreal within the hour, warning residents to shelter indoors and stay away from windows. The alert remained in effect for roughly three hours before being lifted.

Authorities have not yet publicly clarified the exact circumstances of Mizrachi’s death. Community members have said he may have been struck by police gunfire during the exchange, though that has not been officially confirmed.

Community activist Aaron Schmeltzer said Mizrachi’s family went through hours of uncertainty after the shooting. According to Schmeltzer, police denied Mizrachi’s son access to information about his father for several hours before the family learned what happened.

Back at Beth Chabad CSL, shliach Rabbi Tzemach Raskin remembered Mizrachi as a regular presence in shul.

“Mr. Mizrachi would come here on holidays and special occasions. He has a seat upstairs in the shul. He would come together with his son,” Raskin said. “He was a very nice guy, always smiling, always there to help another person.”

Raskin shared an account circulating in the community that Mizrachi may have saved his son’s wife and child during the chaos of the shooting.

“Somebody sent a message to his son that his father saved his wife and child,” Raskin said. “It’s hard to know exactly what happened, as we weren’t there. But to our understanding, he saved people, brought them inside, and he sacrificed his life for others.”

Raskin said the community is taking the account to heart as a lesson.

“We have to think about how we can help another person, not just think about myself, but be there for another person,” he said. “We’re living in a very challenging world, and we have to be there for another person. Act in goodness and kindness.”

Following the interview, Cohen put on tefillin with Raskin and placed a coin in a tzedakah box in Mizrachi’s memory.

David Kakon, a member of the MADA community, described Mizrachi as someone deeply loved by those around him.

“He loved to celebrate together with everyone. Someone who was always smiling, always had a kind word for someone else. Loved his family, loved Israel, and loved being a Jew,” Kakon said. “He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. We are devastated.”

Kakon noted that Beth Rivkah girls school, located a block from the scene, had changed its schedule weeks ago to end the school year on Friday rather than this past week.

“The pizza shop in front of which this took place would have been filled with girls during their break,” he said. “We are all very shaken right now, but this could have been so much worse. It could have been crazy. Thank G-d that it wasn’t.”

VIDEO