Features
Two murders of two Jewish Winnipeggers – one in 1913 and one in 1928 Could they have been eerily connected?
By BERNIE BELLAN The story you’re about to read started off in one direction – then, following a phone call I received Tuesday evening, January 25, took a completely different – and frighteningly eerie direction.
My original story was going to be about a new book that is about to be launched titled “The End of Her”. The book’s author, Wayne Hoffman, is someone who first came to my attention, and subsequently the attention of our readers, in 2015 when he sent me a tantalizingly provocative email whose subject was the long-ago murder of his great-grandmother, Sarah Feinstein.
Mrs. Feinstein was only 26 years old at the time of her murder and, although as Wayne Hoffman notes in his book, there have been many theories advanced as to who could possibly have wanted to murder such a young, innocent woman, the case remains a total mystery.
(You can read my story about “The End of Her” elsehwhere on this website.)
Now, the story of how Wayne Hoffman came to write his book is in of itself quite a fascinating one, but that January 25 phone call really sent my head spinning.
The caller, as it turned out, was a woman with a relatively deep voice. She began by saying that it had just been brought to her attention that there is a Jewish newspaper in Winnipeg. Not only had she never heard of The Jewish Post & News, she said, she wondered what any Jewish newspaper would be all about? Would it be religious in content? she asked. When I assured her that this paper is mostly secular in content she seemed more interested in perhaps taking out a subscription.
We were enjoying a lengthy conversation when the caller sprung this one on me – totally out of the blue: Her grandfather, whose name was Robert Cohen, she told me, had been murdered in Winnipeg in 1928.
“Really?” I asked. “That’s an amazing coincidence,” I said. I explained that I was going to be publishing a story about a new book whose subject was also a long-ago murder of a Jewish Winnipegger.
“I actually have a copy of his obituary,” the caller continued. “But it’s in Yiddish – and I can’t read it.”
She wondered in which newspaper it might have appeared. I said that the main Yiddish language circulation newspaper in Winnipeg at that time was something called Der Yiddishe Vort. I told the caller that I was going to try and see whether there was anything I could find out about her grandfather’s murder and that I would get back to her.
The next day I contacted Stan Carbone, curator of the Jewish Heritage Centre, and asked him whether he or Andrew Morrison, the Centre’s archivist, could help me find the obituary of Robert Cohen from 1928.
Andrew was quick to respond, writing me that when he did a search he was able to come up with one reference to a Robert Cohen in a February 27, 1928 edition of the Israelite Press (which was called Der Yiddishe Vort in Yiddish.)
Andrew sent me the link to the story, which I was able to access on the Jewish Heritage Centre website. What I found was a pdf of the front page from that February 1928 issue which had a story about someone named “Ruven Cohen”, not Robert Cohen. (I can read Yiddish somewhat but my understanding is quite limited.)
But, it was a front page story in that pdf – not an obituary. I realized immediately that the story was about Cohen’s murder.
Next, I contacted Rochelle Zucker, host of the Jewish Radio Hour, and asked her whether she might be able to translate the story for me. Rochelle obliged me that same evening.
Here is the shocking translation of that story , as provided by Rochelle Zucker:
Feb. 17, 1928 Israelite Press
Young Jewish Man from Winnipeg Mysteriously Murdered
R. Cohen murdered in the area of Shell Lake Sask.
Shelbrook Sask, – From the coroner’s inquest of the mysterious death of Ruven Cohen, a cattle merchant from Winnipeg it was found that the $1190 that he had with him when he was leaving the area remained in his pocket. Therefore, the motive for the murder could not have been robbery. The tragic death of R. Cohen, a young man from Winnipeg, made a deep impression here in the city. His body is expected to arrive tomorrow.
According to the information that has been received to date, Mr. Cohen, on his buying trip, had found merchandise in the area and had telegraphed to Winnipeg for money. He got the money and according to reports from the town of Kenwood in that area, he deposited $2000 in the bank. Monday, he took out $1200 and took it with him to pay the farmers for the animals that he bought.
He borrowed a horse from Alfred Schwartz, a Jewish farmer from the area, and rode on horseback in the area. Tuesday, the horse came back home with Cohen’s dead body on it. His hands and feet were tied to the saddle.
Mr. Schwartz and Harry Adelman, a merchant from Shell Lake, traveled immediately to Shelbrook, 40 miles from there and notified the police who immediately started an investigation.
The deceased left behind a widow and 4 children.
Wow! I thought – Mr. Cohen was murdered, but apparently he was not robbed – even though he was carrying a huge amount of cash on his person! And he was in Saskatchewan buying cattle! Sarah Feinstein’s husband, David, was also a cattle buyer who was in Canora, Saskatchewan at the time of her death.
How similar though was Ruven Cohen’s murder to Sarah Feinstein’s I asked myself. Here were two Jewish Winnipeggers, both murdered in the early part of the 20th century, yet with no apparent motive for either one’s murder.
Yet, there was much more to the story, as I was to find out. The next day I contacted the woman who had called me Tuesday evening to tell her what I had found out, including that her “grandfather” was murdered in Saskatchewan, not Winnipeg. But then I was in for another surprise when the woman with whom I was talking told me that she was 19 years old.
“Nineteen?” I said. “But you sound so much older.” After I got over how young this woman was it dawned on me that something else didn’t make sense.
Robert or Ruven Cohen – as he was referred to in the Israelite Press, couldn’t have been her grandfather. She’s much too young to have had a grandfather who was murdered as long ago as 1928. “He had to be your great-grandfather,” I said to her.
“I guess,” she answered. “I hadn’t really thought about it much.” I told her that I was so caught up in this story now that I was determined to try and find out whether there was anything else that I could find out about Mr. Cohen’s murder.
Subsequently, I renewed my subscription to something called newspaperarchives.com, which is a fabulous source for investigative reporters. I had actually taken out a subscription to that service a year and a half ago when I was pursuing the mystery of why someone named Myer Geller had left $725,000 to the “Sharon Home” after he died – without offering any explanation.
It was after searching newspaperarchives.com that I came across a story that was every bit as tantalizing as that initial story from the Israelite Press.
Here is that story, from the February 15, 1928 issue of a newspaper called the Shelbrook Chronicle:
R. Cohen of Winnipeg tied hand and foot to saddle
Horse returns home with dead body
Grim tragedy stalked through the little hamlet of Shell Lake on Tuesday morning when the dead body of Robert Cohen, cattle buyer of Winnipeg, was found tied to the saddle of the horse he was riding. The horse, which Robert Cohen had borrowed from Perry Turrell on Sunday afternoon to go to Kenwood, returned early Tuesday morning to the farmstead of his owner dragging his dead body, and when Mr. Turrell found the body the hands were securely and apparently expertly tied together and then tied to the stirrup of the saddle. The feet were likewise securely tied and the body apparently thrown over the saddle and the feet and hands tied to the same stirrup by the same rope passed underneath the body of the horse. The conjecture is that when the horse was started off the saddle turned under the horse and the body was then thrown under the horse and dragged. The head was severely bruised and lacerated.
It is alleged that a sum of money was sent to Cohen through the bank at Kenwood by his Winnipeg partner and the purpose of his trip to Kenwood was to draw out some of the money for the purpose of buying cattle in the country about Shell Lake.
He is alleged to have withdrawn $1300, distributed about $100 in Kenwood and started for Shell Lake with about $1200. He borrowed the horse – a rather spirited one from Perry Turrell on Sunday afternoon and rather late in the afternoon left for Kenwood. Monday he spent in Kenwood. When interviewed by long distance the pioneer cattle buyers of Kenwood said that Robert Cohen was a stranger to them until his visit of this week.
On Tuesday morning Turrell rose early, noticed that the yard about his buildings was marked as if by an object dragged over it. On examination he found blood stains and then noticed the horse in the yard riderless.
On going over to investigate in the half light of the early morning the horse took fright and ran to the field dragging a dark object. Terrell approach the frightened animal again and this time found that the heavy object was the dead body of Robert Cohen who had on Sunday afternoon borrowed his horse. Thinking life might not be extinct he cut the cinch of the saddle and also the rope which bound the body to the saddle. He then discovered that the man was dead and left the body where it was and immediately sent alarm to several of his neighbours…
In the meantime Turrell and some of his neighbours followed the blood trail out of the yard east on the roadway and across some vacant land for a distance of a mile. An empty pocketbook was found on the snow in this vacant land, presumably that of the dead man, for when the Constable and coroner later examined Cohen there was no money on his person.
Cohen is a large man, apparently about 35 years of age. He has a wife and family in Winnipeg, the wife at present in hospital in that city. His wife has a sister and brother-in-law, residents of Shelbrook, the brother-in-law a blacksmith also named Cohen
There are a number of theories as to how the man may have met his death. The most commonly held is that his assailant, with the intent of robbery, knocked the man insensible, took his money and then tied him to the saddle.
Yet, there is one gaping hole in that Shelbrook Chronicle story. Why on earth would a robber have gone to the trouble of tying Mr. Cohen’s body to his horse after he murdered him? What possible motive could there have been for such a savage and what must have been fairly time consuming task if the motive were simply to rob the poor man? And, why were the two stories – the one in the Israelite Press and the other in the Shelbrook Chronicle so contradictory? Never mind that the name of the person who gave Mr. Cohen a horse was completely different in both stories, the question of whether he was robbed or not is also180 degrees different in both stories.
It was when I came across one final story about Mr. Cohen’s murder, however, in an April 7, 1930 issue of the Winnipeg Free Press that the robbery motive seems to have been thoroughly disproven. Here is an excerpt from that story:
Government offers $1000 reward for slayer of Cohen Winnipeg cattle buyer
Cohen was a likeable man who paid good prices for his cattle and was thought well of in the district where he met his death. Robbery apparently was not the motive for his killing for his money was found in his pockets. (Editor’s note: emphasis mine.) He had been killed before he was roped to the saddle of a horse. A blow at the base of his skull was the cause of death.
So, there we have it. Despite the Shelbrook Chronicle’s claiming that Mr. Cohen had been robbed of $1300, both the Israelite Press’s and the Free Press’s story say the exact opposite: that no money was taken from him. Whether or not he was robbed, the manner in which he was killed and tied to his horse certainly would suggest that the motive for his murder was far more insidious than simply robbing the poor man.
And, what does this have to do with the murder of Sarah Feinstein? Think about it: Two murders of Jews – who both have strong ties to the cattle buying business.
This is where another story written by Wayne Hoffman enters into the picture. In January 2019 we published a story by Wayne about his great-grandfather David, which was titled “My Great-Grandfather, the Jewish Cowboy”.
In that story Wayne goes into great detail about his great-grandfather’s time spent in Canora, Saskatchewan, where he and his brothers had a thriving business, including before and after Sarah Feinstein’s murder. The story is quite vivid in how it describes what an outstanding cowboy David Feinstein was, but when you read the following two paragraphs from that story, just stop to think how much more sense it now makes to think that Sarah Feinstein’s murder was a hit – exacted by some very tough competitors of David Feinstein:
“David’s stay in Canora coincided with Canadian, and later American, Prohibition. According to a few of my cousins, some of the Feinstein brothers–possibly including my great-grandfather–were probably involved in bootlegging. There was more than just horses in those barns, one suggested; perhaps the family’s connection to organized crime had something to do with the murder? It did explain one odd thing I’d found in my research: While the brothers were dealing cattle in Saskatchewan, according to a business directory, they were also officers of a short-lived company in Winnipeg called Manitoba Vinegar Manufacturing.
“The notion that the brothers might have been involved in unsavory endeavors was bolstered by other stories I learned, about how they were serious gamblers, and tax cheats; two of my great-grandfather’s brothers were later fined in what the Tribune called ‘Canada’s biggest tax evasion case.’”
Could both Sarah Feinstein’s and Ruven Cohen’s murders have been part of the same pattern of “sending a message”, which was all too common among gangsters of that era?
You be the judge.
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.