Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit

•

Presents...

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Television Celebrity
& Best-Selling Author,

MieLael Medved

* Stmciay, November

15, 1998 •

0:00 p.m.

D.Dan 64 Betty Kahn Building
West Bloomfield

Mourning A Doctor

Jewish doctor's murder galvanizes abortion activists.

National media personality, Michael Medved, was the
chief film critic for the New York Post and former co-
host of the television show, Sneak Previews. Currently,
he has a daily radio show in Seattle, Washington, which

is syndicated across the United States.

*Unfortunately, 5himon Peres is unable to attend this year's Book Fair event.

For further details, please call (248) 661-7649.

Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit

b. ban & Betty Kahn Building

6600 West Maple Road • West Bloomfield, MI 48322

Jimmy Prentis Morris Building

15110 West Ten Mile Road • Oak Park, MI 48237

10/30
1998

30 Detroit Jewish News

DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN
Special to The Jewish News

New York

D

r. Barnett Slepian and his
wife, Lynn, had just gotten
home from synagogue where
he marked the yahrzeit of his
father's death.
A single rifle shot blasted through
the kitchen window, pierced his back,
penetrated his lungs, exited his body
and left him to die on the floor.
Last Friday night's murder of
' Slepian, an obstetrician-gynecologist
who also performed abortions, has
mobilized the reproductive rights com-
munity, including some Jewish groups
that have long supported a woman's
legal right to obtain an abortion.
Slepian was the seventh abortion
provider to be murdered in the last five
years, according to Nan Rich, national
president of the National Council of
Jewish Women.

Rabbi Robert Eisen, who had chatted
with Slepian in the synagogue just min-
utes before the murder, spoke Monday
to the hundreds gathered for his funeral.
Slepian, a man who everyone called
Ban, was widely liked in his community.
"Forget the politics and ideological
statements. This was a man who loved
his wife, was devoted to his kids and if
you met him on the street you'd think
he was just a lovely guy," said Rabbi
Eisen of Temple Beth El, a Conservative
congregation in Tonawanda, N.Y., in an
interview with JTA.
The Slepians and their four sons,
ages 7 to 15, who had recently joined
-Temple Beth Am, a local Reform con- (n.-)
gregation, in nearby Williamsville, N.Y.,
previously belonged to Temple Beth El,
which they still attended occasionally as
they did on the night of the murder.
Rabbi Eisen, recalling that Slepian
personally performed brit milah, or ritu-
al circumcision, on each of his four sons

MOURNING

on page 32