Michael Applebaum was sworn in as Montreal's first Jewish Mayor in history. His Lubavitch friend attended the ceremony.

By COLlive reporter

Michael Applebaum, the first Jewish mayor of Montreal in its 370-year history, was sworn in Monday for an interim term that will end in the November 2013 election.

The first anglophone mayor in a century, he replaces Gerald Tremblay who resigned following corruption charges.

Applebaum, 49, who held the number 2 position at city hall – chair of the executive committee – for 1 1/2 years, has said he won't run for mayor in the next election, Canadian Jewish News reported.

Applebaum, who is also mayor of the Cote des Neiges - Notre-Dame-de-Grace borough, has strong ties to the Jewish community and has been openly supportive of Israel, the paper said.

He has been a regular at Chabad events in the neighborhood, making it a point to always show up at annual Lag Baomer parades, lighting the menorah at the Chabad Yeshiva building and even worrying to have the schach branches picked up after Sukkos.

In 2006, he refused a request by the pro-Palestinian group Tadamon for a minute of silence at a borough council meeting for a Montreal family killed in Lebanon by Israeli shelling during the conflict with Hezbollah.

Chabad activist Rabbi Dovid Cohen is one of Appelbaum's friends and admirers who attended the swearing in ceremony and wished him much success in his new and important position.