About 500 members of the Jewish community here attended a memorial service last Thursday night at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue for the 21 Turkish Jews murdered in the Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul on September 6.
Rabbi Howard Joseph of the synagogue here led the participants in prayers and delivered a sermon in which he said: “They hate Jews because they are Jews. We rely on the authorities, but we are bound to take our own precautions. We mourn the victims and call for world-wide condemnation of vicious anti-Semitism.”
Dorothy Reitsman, a president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said: “The Istanbul killers were no different from Nazis who murdered Jews because they were Jews. It is still dangerous to be a Jew. We are gathered here to mourn and remember the Jews murdered in Israel, Vienna, Rome, and also the non-Jews, victims of terrorism. Terrorism must be fought, root and branch, as it threatens everything for which we stand.”
Israel’s Vice-Consul Ruth Yaron said, “Israel will pursue terrorists anywhere, and we shall punish them for the spilled blood of the innocents.”
The political Consul of the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa, Koray Targay, said, “Turkey shall not tolerate such malicious acts on its territory, and will do its utmost to apprehend and punish all the perpetrators of this ferocious and insane tragedy.”
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