Features
Faye Rosenberg-Cohen has been at the forefront of some of the most momentous changes in the history of Winnipeg’s Jewish community
By BERNIE BELLAN Faye Rosenberg-Cohen is one of the longest serving staff members at the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg. She actually got her start at the forerunner of the Federation, the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council. (During the course of our interview, she was able to find the date of her first day of employment at the WJCC: May 18, 1994.)
For the past many years Faye has been serving as the Chief Planning and Allocations Officer for the Federation, a role that carries with it a great many different responsibilities.
Recently though Faye has announced that she will be retiring from the Federation as of this coming December and entering into a totally new phase of her life.
I contacted Faye and asked her whether she’d consider being interviewed – about how she came to be doing what she has been doing for the Federation, the changes she’s seen in the Jewish community over her time as a senior administrator, and what life holds for her as she moves into retirement.
I should note that I had the opportunity to sit with Faye at a recent session of the Remis Lecture Series, which is held now at the Gwen Secter Centre on Thursdays at noon. Faye was the guest speaker one Thursday in July and, although she didn’t reveal back then that she would be retiring soon – and I wasn’t taking notes (which I would have had I known that Faye was summing up her career for perhaps the last time in public), much of what she had to say stuck with me, and so when I began my phone interview with her one recent Friday morning, I was able to look back upon much of the information she had disclosed that particular Thursday afternoon.
During the course of the interview, which was conducted August 12, Faye disclosed that her oldest son had just got engaged the night before. Faye and husband Harvey Cohen have three sons altogether (in order): Binyamin, Yitzchak, and Meir. As Faye put it succinctly: “three weddings in three years….One got married last October, one will get married this October and the one who got engaged will get married next summer.”
JP&N: “Where do your sons live?
Faye: “Binyamin lives in Chicago (where he’s a Jewish educator and his fiancé is doing a PhD in the school of divinity), Yitzchak (who obtained an engineering degree from McGill and is now moving on to acquire another degree in computer science) lives in New York where his wife is a resident in pediatrics, and my youngest, Meir, has lived in Toronto for many years, where his fiance is doing a PhD in clinical psychology.”
I observed that Faye and Harvey’s situation is, in some ways, emblematic of the problem that has affected Winnipeg’s Jewish community for years now: “Retaining people in Winnipeg.” I asked Faye to respond.
Faye: “Yes, because we have a global Jewish community and they can move back and forth whenever they need.”
I referred to Faye’s having told at that Remis lecture how she had transitioned from being a volunteer for the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council in the early 1990s to a paid staff member. I asked her to repeat the story.
Faye: “I was on the planning committee for the WJCC and it was really an exciting time because we were talking about what would be needed on the campus.
“The planning committee was vetting the needs and the requirements to go into the campus development plan.”
JP&N: “So this is in the early 90s then. And you were already working in data management – so your skills would have been a perfect fit for what the campus planners were looking for.”
Faye: “I had a masters in computer science (from the U of M. Faye noted that she was one of “three women in the masters class… My mother was one of three women who graduated in commerce.) I had been working in data design and executive information systems management for almost 13 years (at that point).”
I asked how she became involved with the WJCC?
Faye: “I started as a volunteer with the Young Women’s Division. Then I was invited to take a seat on the board as (a representative) from Young Leadership and chaired the young leaders course. I was given a Young Leadership award when my oldest son was a baby.”
I remarked to Faye that I recalled her telling the Remis Lecture audience that when she began working for the WJCC she was actually doing work for which she had previously volunteered.
Faye: “I was on the planning committee, but then the actual Director of Planning, Loraine Bentley, moved to Ottawa because her husband got a job there. So Bob (Freedman, who was then the executive director of the WJCC) called me. He knew that at that particular moment I was not working and he invited me to apply.”
JP&N: “Were you not working because you were looking after one of your kids?”
Faye: “No, I was not working because I had a brief but very bad experience at another job – which is a whole different story.”
JP&N: “So Bob offered you the position that you’ve been holding ever since, although your title has changed slightly.”
“You were involved in the original development of the campus – right?”
Faye: “It was a campus committee before it became the campus corporation. Sheldon Berney was the chair. The meetings were held in a little building on the site.”.
“I worked with the planning committee to finish vetting some of the requests and the expectations. I had been in technology so I worked on the technology requirements part of it…the rfp for putting in phone systems and networking.”
I remarked that the offices of the WJCC used to be at the former YMHA building at 370 Hargrave. “So you must have worked there first?” I asked.
Faye: “I did. I got the job offer from Bob – another offer for a different systems job – and a positive pregnancy test – all in the same morning.”
“I didn’t know I was pregnant when I got the job offers so I called both of them back and said, ‘I’m going to give you a chance to withdraw the offers.’”
But – the offer from the WJCC still stood – even though Faye says that she did take a pay cut to take the job.
Faye: “I remember trotting along with Evelyn Hecht – who is a very fast walker and I was very pregnant, and we walked over to the Immigration Office and we met with someone who was a prospective immigrant to Manitoba. He was from Buenos Aires – and he was Jewish, and lo and behold that became the inspiration for ‘Grow Winnipeg’.”
At that point I wanted to switch gears, and I asked Faye to give a description of how her role as the community’s principal planner has evolved since the first took on the role 28 years ago?
Faye: “I was very fortunate in that I was given the freedom to grow it – to identify the most important areas to work on, and bring those forward to different leadership and planning committees. So I got to work writing the ‘Grow Winnipeg’ strategy. We were going to have a new home and we could focus more on bringing the community back together and focus on other issues rather than worrying about whether all the buildings were going to leak.
“I was just going through some files. We got to work on youth engagement as part of that. I was involved in helping build the ‘Club Fed’ leadership training program. Then, much later we got to build a ‘Jewish engagement strategy.’
“I say ‘we’ because that was the point when we had other people come on board, like Rena Elbaze (Secter), Avi Posen, and Florencia Katz – who’s now the director (of Education and Engagement). We brought Limmud to Winnipeg, PJ Library…PJ Library is probably the best thing that’s happened to Jewish communities in North America – maybe in the world – in over 40 years. It’s such a fantastic way of engaging young families and getting to know them.”
JP&N: “In terms of ‘Grow Winnipeg’, what were the basics of the plan? I take it it was to encourage immigration.”
Faye: “It was actually more than that. It was to encourage immigration, it was also to encourage people to stay. It turns out that the factors that allow young people to stay include that it’s easier to live here, they find significant others, they build lives here…it’s actually been a growing population. We’ll find out for sure when we see the next census data (which is not scheduled to start being released until November).”
JP&N: “There’s always been much talk about the initiative to Argentina. I assume you were quite involved in that, weren’t you?”
Faye: “Yes, I worked alongside Evelyn (Hecht) and after two years I was responsible for Grow Winnipeg, where I supervised Dalia (Szpiro) (GrowWinnipeg director), so I was part of it right from the start.”
JP&N: “Speaking of immigration, I know there’s been a bit of a downturn in the numbers coming here since Covid, but since all provinces have been given increases in the numbers of immigrants they’ll be allowed to bring under Provincial Nominee Programs, can you put your finger on how many new immigrants have come here over the years?”
Faye: “I can honestly say when I look at those numbers it’s somewhere around 1/3 of the community.”
JP&N: “So you’d say it’s somewhere between 4-5,000?”
Faye: “I think it’s more than that.”
JP&N: “You know that I’ve always been skeptical about the numbers that have been used for the population of the Jewish community by the Federation. I think though that it’s always been more of a case of identification – who identifies as Jewish? Has part of your role been trying to get people who didn’t identify as part of the community more involved?”
Faye: “Yes, in the 1990s it was called Jewish continuity and Jewish renaissance and now we talk about welcoming and engagement, but I think the key issue is trying to build the community and make everyone feel welcome in some part of Jewish life. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to have a membership somewhere.”
JP&N: “I know we’ve spoken about this before. Evelyn Katz used to be the unofficial demographer for the community. Is there a database for what you would consider the entire Jewish community?”
Faye: “No, once privacy legislation came along, that was it. Evelyn used to talk to real estate agents, and find out who died, who was born. And then it stopped, nobody could tell her anything. It was against the rules.”
JP&N: “So how do you arrive at your estimates for the size of the Jewish population then?”
Faye: “I rely on the analysis from the census.”
JP&N: “But the last census that was really valid was the 2011 National Household Survey.”
Faye: “So we had to make the best guess that we could – what we could see with our own eyes, and where the gaps were in the data.”
JP&N: “I remember when you started a community planning process in 2016 where Carol Duboff was the chair.”
Faye: “Yes, we called the consultations community conversations.”
JP&N: “What do you think are the keys to maintaining a strong and vibrant community?”
Faye: “That’s always been my focus, Bernie. I’m the person who’s been tasked with looking ahead as the planning director. If you look at our webpage, which is jewishwinnipeg.org/planning, you’ll see that we lay out those priorities. I talked to more than 400 people that year.
“We focused it around four priority areas. It turns out that one of those priority areas, which was Jewish connection, is not something that you act on by itself. It’s the glue that says everything we do needs to promote more and more connections between Jews and with the Jewish community
“Then we focused on the priority areas in terms of goals that we could set – an action plan including: vibrant Jewish life, an inclusive and caring community, and then the things that were the supportive structures.
“I think there are a lot of different kinds of vibrant Jewish life; there’s not just one kind.”
JP&N: “Let’s talk about your retirement. Are you going to be fully retired when you leave your position?”
Faye: “I am. I have an ambition and a plan. I’m going to go be a student for a term.”
JP&N: “And what about Harvey (Faye’s husband)? Is he also retired?”
Faye: “Harvey is also about to retire. He’s worked at the Convention Centre for many years where he worked as the systems manager for the director of the Convention Centre. Once he retired from there he worked at a Catholic counseling centre for the past six years, where he was the equivalent of a CFO.”
Faye then proceeded to explain that both she and Harvey will be going to Israel in the near future. “Harvey is going first and I will go in January when I’m finished (at the Federation). I will be a student at the Pardes Institute…where I’ll be studying Talmud and maybe Chasidut, maybe something about Jewish history…When I was graduating high school those things weren’t available to girls in the same way it was for my boys. You couldn’t go to a program in Israel where you were allowed to study Talmud in a co-ed situation.”
JP&N: “I think there’s something to be said for the Federation, too, as people have come in. It seems to me there’s always been someone there to provide them with mentorship.” Are you the longest-serving employee at the Federation?”
Faye: “No, Elaine Goldstine came a year before me. She worked with (the late) Gerry Kaufman on the fundraising side, who was also a mentor to me. Gerry told me that when he went out on calls he wasn’t soliciting funds, he was finding Jews. If you found the pintele Yid (the Jew inside) the money would follow. But first you need the connection.”
At that point I told Faye that I would send her this interview and offered to let her add anything pertinent that we might have missed during the course of our half-hour conversation.
She sent this post script:
I have worked with so many brilliant lay leaders who taught me so many things, I can’t even make a list small enough for the paper. In the last few years, we’ve been able to build up process, create continuity with vice chairs set to become the next chair, building strong collaboration across the community.
We are not a large enough community to have too many separate groups and agencies and silos. Our great advantage in Winnipeg is that we are out here in Winnipeg. We have to work together to get things done for ourselves and embrace the diversity of our community. We have a long history of doing just that.
I feel like I’m leaving behind something robust enough to let the next planning and allocations director dig in, get started, and then put their own self into the work. And I am grateful for having had the chance to serve my own Jewish community.
Features
More Than the Price: What Discount Culture and Screen Printed T-Shirts Tell Us About Identity and Community
Amidst the era where we’re inclined to speak in hashtags and memes, there remains something quietly powerful in the humble T-shirt—specifically the screen-printed t-shirt. Whether a frayed band tee from a 1998 concert or a crisp cotton shirt promoting some issue of the day, the T-shirt is a storyteller. And when these discounted T-shirts become more accessible, they are democratized, stories made more widely available, somehow ironically more valuable to the people wearing them.
In Jewish life, value has never been two-dimensional. Value is ethical. Value is social. And value, every now and then, is found in the rim of a bargain bin, where meaning isn’t lost, but amplified.
The Discount: A Jewish Perspective on Value
Discounts are typically considered in strictly economic terms: “Was it a good deal?” “How much did you save?” But in most Jewish cultures, there is an additional component: mindful spending. Whether through the bal tashchit principle (not wasting resources) or the practice of tzedakah (charity), Jewish religious doctrine will tend to encourage mindful consumption. A discount isn’t always getting more for less—sometimes it’s about transferring value, leaving cash on the neighborhood high street, or making room in your budget for what counts.
If a tiny Jewish-owned T-shirt store sells screen printed shirt specials for a discounted price during a synagogue fundraiser or youth pilgrimage to Israel, that discounted price sticker doesn’t cheapen the product—it maximizes its purpose. It’s not just a cheap wearable memory; it’s meaningful.
Screen Printed T-Shirts: Textile Torah on the Streets
Screen printed T-shirts are not merchandise—they’re message on wheels. Think of them as contemporary mezuzot, but not on the door, on the person. They announce affiliations, values, and sense of humor. They say: “This is who I am.” And in some Jewish communities, they’ve proved a powerful vehicle for unity and visibility.
From “Camp Shalom 2024” tees to “Shabbat Vibes Only” tees, screen printed shirts have become shorthand. For moments of communal joy—or despair—they’ve become uniform and uniforming. To collect money for Jewish causes, mark a bar mitzvah, or spread word about antisemitism, these T-shirts transcend fashion. They become statements.
And when these tees do become available on sale—after the game or through community programs—it’s not an end. It’s a start. The shirt that originally cost $30 and now costs $10 may end up in someone’s hands who couldn’t have bought it otherwise but wears it with the same, or even more, pride.
Discounted Doesn’t Mean Disconnected
There’s a sweet humility in something that’s undervalued—not because it’s less desirable, but because it’s got a second life to live.
Within Jewish mysticism is the principle of tikkun olam—repairing the world. In a small way, each discounted T-shirt that finds its second home brings us one step closer to this reality. A surplus of camp tops reformatted as pajamas at a homeless shelter. Unused Hanukkah tees donated to local teens. Or just, a well-constructed shirt brought into reach for a young person seeking to express himself.
Discount culture, in this case, is not consumer culture—it’s access. It’s about opening up symbols of identity, solidarity, and protest to greater populations. For communities like Winnipeg’s Jewish community—tight-knit, heritage-grounded, and always pushing forward—this involves ensuring that belonging to culture is never out of reach because of a price.
Printing the Future: T-Shirts as Tools for Cultural Continuity
When younger generations discover themselves, especially in diasporic societies, the tools with which they take hold of themselves change. While one may have sported a siddur on the sleeve, another will sport a message on their chest. That does not make it any less sacred—it merely makes it different.
And while a $5 shirt on sale might not feel like a sacred object, if it sparks a conversation about Israel, inspires curiosity about Yiddish, or gives someone the courage to say, “Yes, I’m Jewish,” then it has value far beyond retail.
Screen printed tees are becoming historical documents. They inform us about what people care about, what they are fighting for, what they are laughing at, and what they are daydreaming about. And because of commerce, more people can be a part of that visual conversation.
The Takeaway: Don’t Underestimate the Cotton
The next time you spot a rack of reduced-rate screen-printed T-shirts—whether at a Jewish community center, synagogue gift shop, or Internet site—see past the discount. Consider who produced the shirt, who first wore it, and who will next wear it. Reflect on the message emblazoned across the chest, and the community that wears it.
Because in an age of throwaway messages and fast fashion, all too often it is the simple cotton shirt—worn from use, screen-printed with purpose, and sold cheaply through sale—that does the lion’s share of cultural preservation.
Features
Don’t Ignore antisemitism on the Right
By HENRY SREBRNIK Most of us know that currently most antisemitism, usually masked as “anti-Zionism,” can be found on the left of the political spectrum in Canada and the United States, thanks to the hatred of Israel. The Jewish state is being isolated internationally, and its Jewish supporters harassed and attacked domestically. And since the political left controls much, if not most, of academia, the media, the “human rights” organizations, and other essential components of society, its negative effects are profound.
On the right, we find far more support of Israel. But this doesn’t mean we should ignore an atavistic, somewhat “old-fashioned,” form of antisemitism on the far right, particularly in the U.S. These people support isolationism in foreign policy. The most explosive issue involves Jews. They see neoconservatives – mainly Jews — as imperialists and themselves as defenders of the republic, including even against President Donald Trump himself.
They are obsessed with the idea of Israel as a uniquely evil force in world history and American Jews as a malignant fifth column. Was the recent striking of Iran’s nuclear program by Trump in America’s national interest, or a needless sacrifice for the Israel lobby, they asked?
Most prominent in this group is the talk show commentator Tucker Carlson. In the paranoid version of world events concocted by Carlson and his guests, it is the “neocons” who drive America to war in the Middle East, motivated by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insatiably expansionist ambitions.
The day after Israel commenced Operation Rising Lion against Iran, Carlson suggested the U.S. military was being controlled by Netanyahu. “Earlier this week, unnamed Washington sources expressed concern over Israel’s ability to fend off Iran’s retaliation, which would inevitably lead to Benjamin Netanyahu ordering the American military to step in and fight on his country’s behalf,” Carlson wrote in a newsletter. “We’re not going to imperil American national security, the American economy, or America itself on your behalf,” he continued.
At the conservative Turning Point USA (TPUSA) conference in July, Carlson also claimed that deceased convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was working for Israel’s Mossad. He said it is “extremely obvious” that Epstein “had direct connections to a foreign government.” Carlson went on: “Now, no one’s allowed to say that that foreign government is Israel, because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that’s naughty.”
At a debate at TPUSA between comedian Dave Smith and conservative intellectual Josh Hammer about U.S. support for Israel, Smith asserted that “The level of Israeli control over our politics is frankly pretty undeniable.” He called Trump “a war criminal who should spend his life in prison.”
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, elected in 2020, initially made headlines for an antisemitic conspiracy theory she shared in 2018 suggesting that deadly California wildfires were caused by alleged Jewish space lasers controlled by the Rothschild family. She has gone on to further infamy. This past June she appeared to suggest in a post on X that former President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 over his opposition to Israel’s nuclear program.
“There was once a great President that the American people loved. He opposed Israel’s nuclear program. And then he was assassinated,” Greene posted as she also defended her dissatisfaction with Trump’s strike on Iran.
She and Carlson shocked viewers after praising New York mayoral candidate and socialist Zohran Mamadani for how he ran his campaign after he won the New York mayoralty Democratic Party primary. “That guy was the only person in the New York City mayor’s debate to say he wanted to focus on New York City,” Carlson said on the June 27 episode of “The Tucker Carlson Show,” with Greene as his guest.
While Greene and Carlson strongly disagreed with Mamdani’s vision for the city, they praised him for running a New York City-centered campaign, noting his answer during a Democratic debate where candidates were asked what foreign country they would visit.
“I think most said Israel,” Carlson stated. “And he said, ‘I wouldn’t go anywhere. I’d stay in New York and like, if I want to meet Jewish constituents, I go to their synagogues, their homes or whatever, but I’d be here in New York because that’s what I’m doing. I’m running New York. That’s my job.’” Responded Greene: “Well, he gave the right answer.”
Another prominent antisemite who has condemned Trump’s support of Israel in the “Twelve-Day War” with Iran is Candace Owens. “This was not Trump’s decision; it was Bibi Netanyahu’s decision,” Owens told TV host Piers Morgan. “And that is the reason that he did it. We’re very aware that Israel is dictating our foreign policy, and we’d now like that to stop.” Like Greene, Owens has suggested that AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, was responsible for President Kennedy’s assassination.
Owens worked for a time at the right-wing youth conservative movement Turning Point USA, where she began to gain a following, including Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who later appeared in public with her before he went on a string of antisemitic rants. She has made and endorsed numerous comments with roots in antisemitic stereotypes, including the blood libel, and her views have been praised by avowed white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
Given that the Democratic Party has basically begun to abandon Israel, should the antisemitic right gain control of the Republican Party MAGA movement, Jews in America, and Israel internationally, would be left in a perilous position similar to the 1939-1941 period. That was when the America First isolationists, many of them fascists, and the Communist Party fellow travellers joined hands in refusing to oppose Hitler, following the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact (also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact) between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, signed that August 23, 1939. As we know, it led to the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
Two bookstores – two contrasting approaches when it comes to offering readers books by an avowed defender of Israel
By BERNIE BELLAN Recently we were contacted by a reader who asked us whether we would be interested in looking into why it is that McNally Robinson Booksellers does not offer any books written by Douglas Murray.
Who is Douglas Murray? you might ask. We have had several stories about Murray on this website over the years, most recently last November, in a story written originally for the Canadian Jewish News titled: “Douglas Murray: A Champion of Israel.”
To give you a better idea who Murray is, here is what Wikipedia has to say about him: “Douglas Murray (born 16 July 1979[)is a British neoconservative political commentator, cultural critic, author, and journalist. He is currently an associate editor of the conservative British political and cultural magazine The Spectator, and has been a regular contributor to The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, the Daily Mail, New York Post, National Review, The Free Press, and UnHerd.
“His books include Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (2006), The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017), The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (2019), The War on the West (2022), and On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West (2025).
“Murray was the associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, a neoconservative think tank, from 2011 to 2018.
“Murray is a critic of current immigration into Europe and of Islam. He became more well-known internationally due to his advocacy for Israel after the October 7 attacks in 2023.
“Murray has been praised by conservatives and criticized by others. Articles in the academic journals Ethnic and Racial Studies and National Identities associate his views with Islamophobia nd he has been described as promoting far-right ideas such as the Eurabia, Great Replacement, and Cultural Marxism conspiracy theories.”
Murray’s most recent book, as mentioned above, is On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West.
Here is the description of the book you can find on Amazon:
“In his travels through Israel and Gaza, #1 International Bestselling author Douglas Murray has seen the best and the worst humanity has to offer, and he has no trouble choosing a side.
“Murray is not Jewish and before October 7, he had never lived in Israel. However, he objects to being lied to, and Israel has been on the receiving end of the biggest, deepest, longest lies in history.
“Israel’s commitment to fundamental Western values—capitalism, individual rights, democracy, and reason—has made it a beacon of progress in a region dominated by authoritarianism and extremism. Israel’s principles vividly contrast with the ideology of Hamas, which openly proclaims its love of death over life. With incisive moral clarity, On Democracies and Death Cults exposes how the campus left and international establishment confuse this conflict by:
- “Calling on Israel for restraint and proportionality, while Hamas commits genocide.
- “Slandering Israelis as white colonialists, while only a third of Israelis are Jews of European ancestry.
- “Framing the conflict as oppressor vs. oppressed, when it is really between a thriving multi-ethnic democracy and a death cult bent on its annihilation.
“Drawing from intensive on-the-ground reporting in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon, Douglas Murray places the latest violence in its proper historical context. He takes readers on a harrowing journey through the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, piecing together the exclusive accounts from victims, survivors, and even the terrorists responsible for the atrocities. If left unchecked, misplaced sympathy could embolden forces that seek to undermine not only Israel, but all of Western civilization.”
Given that Douglas Murray is a staunch defender of Israel, what does it say about McNally Robinson Booksellers that they refuse to carry any of the five books that Murray has written to date?
We asked a spokesperson for McNally Robinson whether anyone wished to comment as to why it is that the store will not carry any of Murray’s books, but we were told that McNally Robinson has no comment to make.
As a result, we headed down to the store to take a look for ourselves at the selection of titles that McNally Robinson has on display about Israel and Palestine and that can be found under the heading “Middle East Issues.”
Here are the titles we were able to see in the store:
The Time Beneath the Concrete – Palestine between Camp and Colony; I Shall Not Hate; Jews Don’t Count; Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza (by Peter Beinart); Hope Without Hope; The Gardener of Lashkar Gah; States Without People; Hamas – From Resistance to Regime; The State of Israel vs. The Jews; Israel/Palestine; Banging on the Walls of the Tank; Perfect Victims; Genocide Bad; The Wall Between; The Palestine Laboratory; Road to October 7; Hamas; The World After Gaza; Palestine in a World on Fire; Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic; Loot – How Israel Stole Palestinian Property.
As well, McNally Robinson has a great many other books about Israel and Palestine that are available to order online, including (but not limited to):
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine – A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance 1917-2017; Genocide Bad; A Genocide Foretold; The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine; Recognizing the Stranger (On Palestine and Narrative): The Question of Palestine; October 7th – Searching for the Humanitarian Middle
In contrast with McNally Robinson’s approach to the subject of Israel and Palestine, Indigo Books offers books that are more sympathetic to Israel. Given that Heather Reisman is the owner of Indigo Books and has demonstrated support for Israel, particularly through a foundation she and her husband, Gerald Schwartz, established, known as the HESEG Foundation, which provides scholarships for “lone soldiers” serving in the Israel Defence Forces, it should come as no surprise that Indigo Books offers books that contain a more pro-Israel perspective – in contrast with McNally Robinson.
As well, from time to time, Heather Reisman adds the title “Heather’s Pick” to a particular book, which means that book is “specifically recommended by her and comes with a money-back guarantee,” according to the article about her on Wikipedia.
Here are titles that were located on shelves under the heading “World History” that we saw on display at the Indigo Books location on Empress:
The Prime Ministers – An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (a “Heather’s Pick”); Mossad; A Child in Palestine; Understanding Palestine; Enemies and Neighbors; Palestine 1936 – The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict; The Hundred Years War for Palestine; The Wall; Israel – Palestine; Orientalism (by Edward Said); The Question of Palestine; Ghosts of a Holy War; The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine; A Half Century of Occupation; Can We Talk About Israel?; Deluge; A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy; Israel (by Noa Tishby); The Lemon Tree; Thirteen Days in September: The Dramatic Story of the Struggle for Peace (story of Begin and Sadat at Camp David); Son of Hamas; Israel – A Concise History of a Nation Reborn (a “Heather’s Pick”); Israel and Civilization; Terror Tunnels (by Alan Dershowitz); Israel – A History (by Martin Gilbert); Impossible Takes Longer; Israel Alone; Ally (by Michael Oren); On Being Jewish Now; The Story of the Jews; Antisemitism in America; The World After Gaza; The War on the West (also by Douglas Murray).
As well, Indigo Book has a lengthy list of other titles that relate to the subjects of Israel and Palestine and that can be ordered online.
We might also note that the Douglas Murray book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West, was not only for sale at the Indigo Books location on Empress, it was showcased when we were there (July 24).
Readers should bear in mind though that both McNally Robinson Booksellers and Indigo Books are privately owned and it is the prerogative of the owners to choose which books they will sell.