Quebec police are investigating an incident of anti-Semitic vandalism at a Montreal cemetery.

Headstones were desecrated at Canada's oldest Jewish cemetery some time on Monday night.

Police said swastikas were drawn on several stones, while the word Hitler was scrawled on another at the Back River Cemetery.

The vandalism has outraged Montreal's Jewish community. "When you desecrate the memory of those who cannot speak, it's cowardly and it's a shameful act," Rabbi Asher Jacobson told CTV's Montreal affiliate, CFCF News.

Cemetery manager Gerald Silverberg said the cemetery had been often targeted by vandals in the 1990's, but there hadn't been any incidents in the past several years.

Howard Kirstein came to check on the gravestones of his family members, after hearing about the vandalism.

Kirstein was relieved the graves of his parents and grandparents were untouched, but he said he was concerned about the increase in anti-Semitic acts in Montreal.

Police do not believe the overnight vandalism is linked to the recent fire-bombing of a Montreal-area Jewish elementary school.

Upon hearing of the destruction at the United Talmud Torahs school last month, tough-guy actor Russell Crowe -- in Toronto to film "Cinderella Man" -- called the school to offer a personal donation.

This latest incident also comes on the heels of a string of hate crimes against Jews in Ontario.

In March, vandals knocked over dozens of tombstones in a Toronto cemetery. Several homes and a synagogue were also the target of anti-Semitic graffiti the Toronto area have been vandalized in the last month.