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MONTREAL (JTA) — The message of a Yom HaShoah rally in downtown Montreal was clear: Suspected Nazi war criminals residing in Canada better beware.

Some 2,000 Jewish demonstrators gathered on Monday to call on the Canadian government to take swift action against alleged war criminals living openly in the country.

The protest came in the wake of recent disclosures that there are hundreds of suspected Nazi veterans living in Canada.

"It is unacceptable that 10 years after the full report of the Deschesnes Commission, there has been only one successful denaturalization and deportation proceeding," Myra Giberovitch, a co-chairman of the Canadian Jewish Congress' national Holocaust remembrance committee, said in her address to the rally.

The government commission in 1987 recommended action against 20 suspected war criminals in Canada and the investigation of 218 others.

Smolensk cemetery struck, Jews urges officials to act

MOSCOW (JTA) — Vandals destroyed 52 headstones last week at a Jewish cemetery in Smolensk, a city of 280,000 in western Russia.

The desecrated headstones were turned over and broken. Dozens of metal name-plates were ripped off the stones.

Leaders of the 5,000-strong Jewish community of Smolensk called on local authorities to condemn the act of vandalism, which occurred on the day of Russian Orthodox Easter.

Viktor Vaksman, the head of the Smolensk Jewish community, said the incident was a clear case of anti-Semitism and that anti-Semitic incidents have become "a sort of Easter tradition" in Smolensk.

Last year, the Jewish community's office was burglarized on Easter Day, and its door was daubed with a swastika and anti-Semitic slogans. Two years ago, a few dozen headstones were damaged at the same Jewish cemetery.

Jewish bank figure detained in Moscow

MOSCOW (JTA) — The head of a large Russian bank who is also a prominent member of the country's Jewish community has been detained in Moscow on suspicion of embezzling more than $120 million.

Arkady Angelevich, who heads Moscow's Montazhspetsbank and is a member of the presidium of the Russian Jewish Congress, has been held in prison for two weeks.

Under Russian law, Angelevich can be held for 30 days without being formally charged.

During a search of Angelevich's apartment, officials with the Interior Ministry allegedly found incriminating documents, $55,000 in cash and $1 million worth of jewels.

Angelevich was arrested on the way to the airport, where he was planning to leave for Israel, according to news reports.