Alexandre Look was born on 10 September 1990 in Montreal, into a Jewish family whose roots run down to Agadir. His parents, Alain Look and Raquel Ohnona, belong to that generation of Moroccan Jews who, after leaving Morocco, carried the memory of the Souss with them to Canada. The names Look and Ohnona appear on the stones of several Jewish cemeteries of Morocco recorded in our archive.
Alex grew up in Côte Saint-Luc, at the heart of the Jewish community of Montreal. A pupil of Bialik high school, a regular of the Chabad of his neighbourhood, he was, in his father's words, "a force of nature, with a unique charisma and a generosity beyond compare". Settled for four years in Los Cabos, Mexico, where he worked, he had just turned 33.
Agadir was not for him a mere inherited memory: he came there. He is seen here at the Mimouna of 2009, held at the home of Michael Sicsu, co-creator of this site.
The night of 7 October 2023
On holiday in Israel with friends, Alex was at the Nova music festival, near kibbutz Reïm, a few kilometres from the Gaza Strip. At dawn on Saturday 7 October 2023, the day of Simhat Torah (22 Tishri 5784), Hamas launched its attack on the south of Israel. The festival was among the first places struck: 364 people were murdered there.
Alex took shelter with some thirty festival-goers in a bomb shelter that had no door. On the telephone with his parents, in the middle of the night in Montreal, he told them: "Mum, we are in the middle of a terrorist attack." Posted at the entrance of the shelter, he kept watch. His last words, heard by his parents still on the line: "They are coming back. There are many of them." Then bursts of fire, and silence.
The survivors told his family what had happened: Alex had made a shield of his body at the entrance of the shelter, facing the attackers to bar the way, until he fell under their fire.
"I swear to you, he was our shield. Without him we would all be dead, all thirty of us."
A woman who survived the shelter, to his parents
Alexandre Look is one of the eight Canadians murdered on 7 October. "Like a true warrior, he died a hero, trying to protect the people who were with him", his father wrote. He rests in Montreal, where he was buried on 26 October 2023, surrounded by thousands.
His memory
His stone carries his Hebrew name, Avraham bar Rachel Leah (אברהם בר רחל לאה), and says that he "fell as a hero for the sanctification of the Name, in the Holy Land", on 22 Tishri 5784. The French epitaph plays on his name: "Beloved son, brother and grandson, you were Magen Avraham and a hero of Israel." Magen Avraham, the shield of Avraham: the opening words of the first blessing of the Amida, become, in one night, literally true.
On 9 September 2024, the city of Côte Saint-Luc gave his name to a park, Place Alexandre-Look, between the Chabad of his childhood and the Bialik school where he had studied. "This place that will bear Alex's name will serve as a beacon of hope and remembrance", his mother said at the inauguration.
This page pays him tribute here, on the site of the Jewish cemetery of Agadir, the town of his roots. A son and grandson of that community, he showed in a single night what centuries of Jewish life in the Souss had taught: the life of one's own comes before one's own life.
תהא נשמתו צרורה בצרור החיים · השם יקום דמו
May his soul be bound up in the bond of life.
His story in the press
- "A Canadian hero, killed in Israel protecting others" Global News, October 2023: the account of his parents, the video call, the shelter.
- "We will never be the same again" The Globe and Mail: the void left by his death in his family and his community.
- His funeral in Montreal, 26 October 2023 The Canadian Jewish News: a generous man who saved lives.
- A year on: his mother and "the hole in the heart" CBC News, October 2024: an interview with Raquel Ohnona.
- Place Alexandre-Look inaugurated in Côte Saint-Luc JNS, September 2024: the dedication of the park between the Chabad and the Bialik school.
- The tribute of the city of Côte Saint-Luc City of Côte Saint-Luc: the official announcement, then the ceremony of 9 September 2024.
- The ceremony in pictures Mike Cohen, city councillor: photographs of the inauguration.