Anti-Israel activists demonstrated against Indigo Books and Music at the Toronto Eaton Centre on Boxing Day, drawing outrage from Canadian politicians.
Anti-Israel activists shouted “Free Palestine” in the busy shopping mall on Thursday, according to a video published by ex-Jewish Defense League activist Meir Weinstein, protesting against Indigo founder and CEO Heather Reisman’s Heseg foundation, which provides educational scholarships to former IDF soldiers.
Protesters unfurled a banner over a guardrail that called for the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu similar to one used at the Toronto For Palestine protests. The Jews Say No to Genocide activist coalition said on Sunday that they were present at the protest.
“CEO of Indigo, Heather Reisman, pays to send Canadians to an army that is under trial for genocide and has been documented by the UN to have committed severe war crimes over the past year,” Toronto For Palestine wrote on social media on Sunday.
“Her organization even violates Canadian Law by contravening the Foreign Enlistment Act, as well as CRA rules by registering as a tax-exempt charitable organization despite ‘supporting the armed forces of a foreign nation’ being specifically stated to not be acceptable for this designation.”
Antisemitic hatred
Eglinton-Lawrence Parliament Member Marco Mendicino on Friday denounced the protest as “antisemitic hatred targeted at a Jewish-owned business” to create “chaos in public and intimidate the employees and shoppers who do business there.”
“This isn’t a lawful demonstration for peace,” Mendicino said on X/Twitter. “It’s a crime. And it should be prosecuted under the law!”
York Centre MP Ya’ara Saks wrote that day that freedom of expression and protest does not include targeting Jewish-owned businesses. Thornhill MP Melissa Lantsman responded Friday by asking who was responsible for public safety in the country, province, and city.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke criticized the protests as part of a downward spiral of slipping standards.
“Everyone can believe whatever they want. It’s not about beliefs, it’s about behavior, especially when it affects others. Law and order have to enforce behavior independent of causes. Somehow, some causes seem to allow behavior that would never be tolerated by other causes. This double standard has to stop,” Lutke wrote on X.
“It’s not about the causes or the beliefs of the individuals or even about geopolitics at all. It’s about the behavior of what some do. This is not additive to civil society and does not make Canada better in any way.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said Friday that the silent majority of Canadians were “sick of” such protests, but Boycott Indigo Books, which has been leading a running anti-Israel campaign against the Canadian bookseller, asserted on X that CIJA was engaged in mind-reading of Canadians.
Activists like Jews Say No to Genocide said that Canadian politicians and commentators were misleading the public by casting the protest as targeting a Jewish business when they were targeting Indigo for its CEO’s pro-Israel projects.