By PAUL LUNGEN
Staff Reporter
Canadian Jewish News
Staff Reporter
Canadian Jewish News
November 5, 1998
TORONTO - Is someone out there hunting Jewish doctors?Early last week, Amherst N.Y. Dr. Barnett Slepian became the third Jewish physician who performs abortions to be shot by suspected anti-abortion zealots since 1994. Slepian was murdered shortly after he and his family returned home from synagogue where they attended Shabbat services. His shooting came about a year after Dr. Jack Fainman was wounded by a sniper in Winnipeg. In 1994, Dr. Garson Romalis was wounded in Vancouver while in 1995 a sniper wounded Dr. Hugh Short in Ancaster, just outside of Hamilton. Short is not believed to be Jewish. A fifth, unidentified U.S. doctor was shot in Richmond, N.Y. in 1997. Other abortion doctors have also been killed or wounded in bombing or shooting attacks in Pensacola, Florida, Boston and Birmingham, Ala. Police and U.S. marshalls in Amherst stepped up security around a physician providing abortion services after an anti-abortion zealot called the Hamilton Spectator offices to say the Buffalo-area doctor was on a sniper's hit list. Earlier, a flyer with a picture of Slepian was left in the Hamilton police washroom. Slepian's face was crossed out with an X and the words "killer, Jew, Nazi" were written on it.While not all abortion doctors singled out for attack were Jewish, the shootings of Slepian, Fainman, Romalis and Short share common elements: they were all shot through a window in their homes within a few days of Nov. 11, Canada's Remembrance Day.Dr. Henry Morgantaler believes it's more than a coincidence that three of the doctors are Jewish."I have noticed it," Morgantaler said. "I don't rule out the possibility that the perpetrator is anti-woman and also anti-Semitic. The anti-Semitic part is nothing new to me. I've been insulted many time for being a Jew."Morgantaler, who pioneered a woman's right to an abortion in Canada, said he doesn't believe Jewish doctors are providing abortion services out of proportion to their numbers in the general population of physicians. "But the people against abortion try to make an issue out of it. It's like a modern blood libel, blaming Jewish doctors for killing Christian children." Mark Weintraub, national chair of Canadian Jewish Congress' community relations committee, adopted a more cautious approach."To date, we simply do not have any information available that would suggest that anti-Semitism is an additional motivating factor in the attacks on our doctors," he said. Nevertheless, he added, "we don't want to ignore the possibility of such a linkage."Weintraub said Congress' staff "will be discussing this with police...Those are members of our community who have been attacked."
Sol Littman, Canadian representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, was also cautious in attributing anti-Semitic motivation to the shootings. But he urged police to follow up that angle. "If they fail to take it into consideration, they're failing to do their duty," he said.Littman pointed out that right-wing extremists often link Jews to issues they oppose, whether it is farm foreclosures or abortion."The radical anti-abortion movement people could see Jews as perpetrators, and act against them," he suggested.Staff-Sgt. Bill Vandergraaf, a member of a task force set up to investigate the shootings, said police were aware that three of the victims are Jewish. But "there's nothing in our investigation to suggest that is a motivation. We're not investigating it as a hate crime."Speaking from the task force headquarters in Winnipeg, Vandergraaf said police are not convinced the poster left in the Hamilton police headquarters was connected to the shootings. It might have been left by radical elements that are not connected to the killings, he suggested.Phil Baum, executive director of the American Jewish Congress (AJC), also dismissed suggestions someone was specifically targeting Jewish doctors. "I know of no police effort to identify Jewish doctors. I think the anger and outrage is directed at doctors doing abortion. I know of no reason to believe the motive [in the Slepian shooting] was anti-Semitism...I think it was coincidental that he was Jewish."An AJC news release condemned "those who, in the name of 'a demonic religious belief' provide encouragement for the murderers even if not specifically calling for murder.""It is not necessary explicitly to support a murder to provide the climate which impels psychopaths to take action. Moral shame and culpability attach no less to those who fail to condemn these acts or...condone and even justify them."Referring to Slepian's murder, AJC noted that "the contrast between the Sabbath peace he had returned to celebrate, and the violence of his death make his murder all the more obscene."In the United States, the National Council of Jewish Women planned vigils in Washington, D.C. and other cities in response to the shooting, while the Reform movement sent materials to its congregations to help them address the issues raised by the murder.Meanwhile in Hamilton, police are investigating whether two anti-abortion groups are working together in the four-year terror campaign, the Spectator's Bill Dunphy reported.A caller to the Spectator newsroom warned that another Buffalo-area doctor was targeted and said "our cousins in the United States have their list. We have our own."Hamilton police have linked the caller to a series of anti-abortion threats and messages delivered to the newspaper and a Hamilton-area doctor in the last year. The same man was linked to the flyer left in police headquarters.
http://www.cjnews.com/pastissues/98/nov5-98/main.htm
TORONTO - Is someone out there hunting Jewish doctors?Early last week, Amherst N.Y. Dr. Barnett Slepian became the third Jewish physician who performs abortions to be shot by suspected anti-abortion zealots since 1994. Slepian was murdered shortly after he and his family returned home from synagogue where they attended Shabbat services. His shooting came about a year after Dr. Jack Fainman was wounded by a sniper in Winnipeg. In 1994, Dr. Garson Romalis was wounded in Vancouver while in 1995 a sniper wounded Dr. Hugh Short in Ancaster, just outside of Hamilton. Short is not believed to be Jewish. A fifth, unidentified U.S. doctor was shot in Richmond, N.Y. in 1997. Other abortion doctors have also been killed or wounded in bombing or shooting attacks in Pensacola, Florida, Boston and Birmingham, Ala. Police and U.S. marshalls in Amherst stepped up security around a physician providing abortion services after an anti-abortion zealot called the Hamilton Spectator offices to say the Buffalo-area doctor was on a sniper's hit list. Earlier, a flyer with a picture of Slepian was left in the Hamilton police washroom. Slepian's face was crossed out with an X and the words "killer, Jew, Nazi" were written on it.While not all abortion doctors singled out for attack were Jewish, the shootings of Slepian, Fainman, Romalis and Short share common elements: they were all shot through a window in their homes within a few days of Nov. 11, Canada's Remembrance Day.Dr. Henry Morgantaler believes it's more than a coincidence that three of the doctors are Jewish."I have noticed it," Morgantaler said. "I don't rule out the possibility that the perpetrator is anti-woman and also anti-Semitic. The anti-Semitic part is nothing new to me. I've been insulted many time for being a Jew."Morgantaler, who pioneered a woman's right to an abortion in Canada, said he doesn't believe Jewish doctors are providing abortion services out of proportion to their numbers in the general population of physicians. "But the people against abortion try to make an issue out of it. It's like a modern blood libel, blaming Jewish doctors for killing Christian children." Mark Weintraub, national chair of Canadian Jewish Congress' community relations committee, adopted a more cautious approach."To date, we simply do not have any information available that would suggest that anti-Semitism is an additional motivating factor in the attacks on our doctors," he said. Nevertheless, he added, "we don't want to ignore the possibility of such a linkage."Weintraub said Congress' staff "will be discussing this with police...Those are members of our community who have been attacked."
Sol Littman, Canadian representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, was also cautious in attributing anti-Semitic motivation to the shootings. But he urged police to follow up that angle. "If they fail to take it into consideration, they're failing to do their duty," he said.Littman pointed out that right-wing extremists often link Jews to issues they oppose, whether it is farm foreclosures or abortion."The radical anti-abortion movement people could see Jews as perpetrators, and act against them," he suggested.Staff-Sgt. Bill Vandergraaf, a member of a task force set up to investigate the shootings, said police were aware that three of the victims are Jewish. But "there's nothing in our investigation to suggest that is a motivation. We're not investigating it as a hate crime."Speaking from the task force headquarters in Winnipeg, Vandergraaf said police are not convinced the poster left in the Hamilton police headquarters was connected to the shootings. It might have been left by radical elements that are not connected to the killings, he suggested.Phil Baum, executive director of the American Jewish Congress (AJC), also dismissed suggestions someone was specifically targeting Jewish doctors. "I know of no police effort to identify Jewish doctors. I think the anger and outrage is directed at doctors doing abortion. I know of no reason to believe the motive [in the Slepian shooting] was anti-Semitism...I think it was coincidental that he was Jewish."An AJC news release condemned "those who, in the name of 'a demonic religious belief' provide encouragement for the murderers even if not specifically calling for murder.""It is not necessary explicitly to support a murder to provide the climate which impels psychopaths to take action. Moral shame and culpability attach no less to those who fail to condemn these acts or...condone and even justify them."Referring to Slepian's murder, AJC noted that "the contrast between the Sabbath peace he had returned to celebrate, and the violence of his death make his murder all the more obscene."In the United States, the National Council of Jewish Women planned vigils in Washington, D.C. and other cities in response to the shooting, while the Reform movement sent materials to its congregations to help them address the issues raised by the murder.Meanwhile in Hamilton, police are investigating whether two anti-abortion groups are working together in the four-year terror campaign, the Spectator's Bill Dunphy reported.A caller to the Spectator newsroom warned that another Buffalo-area doctor was targeted and said "our cousins in the United States have their list. We have our own."Hamilton police have linked the caller to a series of anti-abortion threats and messages delivered to the newspaper and a Hamilton-area doctor in the last year. The same man was linked to the flyer left in police headquarters.
http://www.cjnews.com/pastissues/98/nov5-98/main.htm
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