VANCOUVER, Canada (JTA) — Two brothers are going to court to stop the distribution of anti-Semitic posters in Winnipeg.
Sandy and Robert Shindleman, real estate developers in central Canada, are bringing the suit against the man responsible for posters titled "$hitlers List" that began appearing last year on the streets of Winnipeg. The posters accuse a list of prominent Jews in the city of being part of a "cabal of cockroaches," primarily targeting the mayor, Sam Katz, but also naming the Shindlemans.
The brothers’ decision to file the lawsuit was spurred by the government’s decision not to pursue hate-speech charges against Gordon Warren, who failed in a bid for Winnipeg City Council seat, the National Post reported Monday.
"We’ve never backed down from a bully or let a bully succeed in bullying people that we know," Sandy Shindleman, CEO of Shindico, the real estate company where his brother also is an executive, told the Post. "We’ll stand up for ourselves, we’ll stand up for others."
In January, Warren ackowledged that he made the posters, according to the Post report. The provincial attorney general’s office in Manitoba declined to bring charges against him because the posters did not explicitly promote genocide, a B’nai Brith Canada attorney told the Post.
The Shindlemans’ suit primarily accuses Warren of libel, but 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 in which incidents increased. Last year saw 78 anti-Semitic incidents in the province, 18 more than in 2010.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
