Winnipeg Fights Back Against Anti-Semitic ‘$Hitler’s List’ Vandals
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Two prominent Jewish real-estate developers in central Canada are going to court to stop the distribution of anti-Semitic posters.
Posters titled “$hitlers List” began appearing on the streets of Winnipeg last year and accused a list of prominent Jews in the city of being part of a “cabal of cockroaches.” The posters primarily targeted the Jewish mayor of Winnipeg, Sam Katz, but they also name brothers Sandy and Robert Shindleman, who are now bringing suit against the man responsible.
The Shindleman brothers’ decision to file the lawsuit came following the government’s decision not to pursue hate-speech charges against the man responsible for the posters, the National Post reported Monday.
“We’ve never backed down from a bully, or let a bully succeed in bullying people that we know. We’ll stand up for ourselves, we’ll stand up for others,” Sandy Shindleman, CEO of Shindico, the real-estate company where his brother Robert is also an executive, told the Post.
Failed Winnipeg city council candidate Gordon Warren admitted to making the posters in January, according to the Post report. The provincial attorney general’s office in Manitoba declined to bring charges against Warren because the posters did not explicitly promote genocide, a B’nai Brith Canada attorney told the Post.
The Shindleman brother’s suit against Warren primarily accuses him of libel, but it also claims the brothers were the victims of hate-speech. If the hate-speech claim is proven, the court could issue an injunction stopping Warren from saying anything more about the brothers.
While a B’nai Brith Canada report released in 2012 showed anti-Semitic incidents decreasing across Canada, Manitoba was one of two areas where such incidents increased. Last year saw 78 anti-Semitic incidents in the province, eighteen more than in 2010.
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