Do you remember Dr. Barnett Slepian?
Dr. Slepian was an Ob-Gyn and abortion provider at Buffalo Women Services in Buffalo, New York, who was shot in his kitchen in October, 1998. Before the murder, Dr. Slepian’s personal information had been posted on a public website (and afterwards, his name on the site was x’ed-out). He was far from the only victim of this special symbiosis of terror: an extremist group publishes private information—including a home address and the names of relatives—and then washes its hands of any complicity when an unhinged supporter of their cause takes their implication to its logical conclusion.[1]
And tragically, that is hardly the only example of homegrown terror in these bloody times.
I was thinking about the murdered abortion doctors while the latest form of anti-Jewish hate has emerged here in Boston. A new toxic website called the “Mapping Project”[2] has slithered up from the primordial sludge of the internet, purporting to out communal organizations that are “responsible for the colonization of Palestine or other harms such as policing, U.S. imperialism, and displacement.” The agenda is to intimidate and threaten every organization with ties to Israel—which means virtually every Jewish organization in New England. And judging by the list, the politics of right vs. left are irrelevant; every Jewish group (except synagogues) is indicted in the slander.
The website identifies and gives the addresses of approximately 500 organizations. Among them are the organizations that are the backbone of the Jewish community of New England: the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Boston JCRC, the ADL, the Jewish Arts Collaborative, the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts, the New Israel Fund, J Street, and more. Addresses are listed, as are the names of board members and major donors.
Also: University Hillels (including Babson College, where I work) and Jewish day schools.
Got that? Our schools.
This, as the nation still seethes from the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
Let’s take a moment and review what the Jewish community has experienced in the past three years. In January 2022, a rabbi and three worshippers were held hostage at gunpoint in Colleyville, Texas. In December 2019, two terrorists shot up a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey, killing three. In April 2019, a gunman fired an assault rifle in the Chabad synagogue of Poway, California, killing one woman. And on October 27, 2018, a gunman massacred 11 people and wounded 6 in a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA, the deadliest attack on a Jewish community in U.S. history. And those, of course, are just the most tragic of the near-weekly assaults and acts of vandalism, not to mention the cesspool of hate found on social media.
Into this context, the people behind this “Mapping Project” have the gonads and ugly souls to put these institutions in their crosshairs.
No doubt, if an act of violence is perpetrated against one of these Jewish organizations (G-d forbid), the BDS crowd in New England will profess their innocence—just like those who post the home addresses of abortion doctors.
Are Jews on edge in America? Yeah, I’d say so. We have learned how to live with increased security in our synagogues and communal institutions, in this land of alleged religious liberty. And we know who our allies are—as well as those who have remained sadly silent.
The message of the “mapping project” is clear: the Jewish community as a whole bears responsibility for the oppression of Palestinians, as well as every other social injustice on earth. (There is no room in BDS for the complexity and nuance in the Israel-Palestinian crisis; just demons and martyrs.)
This “Mapping Project”, in fact, has all the hallmarks of classic antisemitism:
· Jews run a sinister international cabal that controls world events;
· Jewish money finances this global network;
· Zionism is a form of colonialism and white supremacy (it is so utterly self-evidently neither of those things) (and as if these Jewish organizations weren’t in fact the targets of white supremacists!);
· As Justin Finkelstein of the ADL-New England has pointed out, similar maps have historically been used to target the Jewish community and turn the public against it as a “fifth column.”
The individuals behind the “Mapping Project” are, of course, cowards. In the name of “exposing the truth,” they hide their own identities. The usual bigots have promoted their work – BDS Boston, Mass Peace Action, and their ilk. These are the sorts of groups who went after Boston Mayor Michelle Wu last year for taking campaign contributions from “sinister Zionists”—again, the classic antisemitic phrasing designed to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish community.
Yet, as ever, people of good faith are determined not to let haters win. On Monday, a remarkable online gathering was held, assembled by the ADL, CJP, and Boston JCRC. 1,300 community leaders recommitted to the long fight against antisemitism and all bigotry, as well as doing the hard work with allies who understand that the support of a democratic and peaceful Israel is not simply a hobby or political flavor—it is, in fact, part and parcel of our work towards Tikkun Olam (World-Repair).
Of course, we don’t know when the next assault will come. The memory of Dr. Slepian—as well as Colleyville, Pittsburgh, and all the others—tells us we must be vigilant. These are dangerous times.
To our enemies we say: We will never succumb to terror or be derailed in our own self-determination, nor in our eternal connections to the Land of Israel, nor in our vision of a future of peace for two peoples with valid narratives determined to live alongside one another.
To our allies we say: We remain ever grateful for your friendship, and we will ever be your partners to fight against all hate and bigotry.
[1] As far as I know, the murder of Dr. Slepian was because he was an abortion doctor—not because he was Jewish. It is therefore just an incidental wrinkle that he was murdered at home on Shabbat, shortly after returning from shul where he had been saying Kaddish for his father.
[2] My dilemma: Do I provide a link for readers to see the “Mapping Project” for themselves? I’ve decided not to give them the web traffic. If you want to find it, I presume you know how to do so.