Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints

of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining

power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,

we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle

capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know

we need. Good morning. Can you introduce yourself, please? Hi, good morning. Yes. I am an activist

and an organizer with the Indigo Kills Kids campaign. That's a pretty inflammatory name

for a campaign. I mean, it's the truth. It is the truth. It is the truth. uh And I think

folks will agree with us by the time we get done with this episode. Why did you name your

campaign Indigo Kills Kids? Without getting into the details, mean, like we talked about

before we recorded Language Matters. Yeah. And we try not to be inflammatory or, you

know, appeal to a broad audience. But I mean, that's knee-jerk right there. Well, we want

people to stop and think, and we want people to ask the question. Like when you hear the

phrase Indigo Kills Kids, the idea is like, why? What do you mean Indigo kills kids? It

makes you ask questions. And that's what we want people to do. We want you to ask. We want

you to think critically and we want you to dig deeper. Because yeah, most people when

they think about Indigo, it's very bright, spacious books. almost, it feels like some of the only

place you can buy books. They've got a great kids section, right? It totally drives with

the branding that they're trying to put out there. That's for sure. I don't imagine.

um Its major shareholder, Heather Reisman, appreciates the title. Have you faced a lot of backlash?

I mean, of course, yes. I'm right out of the gate. We were served with a cease and desist

within two weeks of the campaign launching. That was followed up when we ignored it

because we're all, I don't, we don't need people telling us what to do. let alone lawyers. um

Two weeks later, we received a series like back to back to back. We received a series

of legal notices, including a lawsuit, claiming copyright infringement, suing for damages,

which then they leverage to enforce an injunction on our website and to have us uh to have the

site blocked. In Canada, they also put in a request with, what is it in Canada, we have

like the domain, the domain, the domain police. uh And in the US ICANN and the Canadian version,

they put in a complaint there saying that we were, the URL will cause confusion and there's

too much likeness. And effectively they scooped both domains, which in my opinion, But it's

hilarious because if you look up, uh, like the DNS, or if you do like a who is look up on

indigo kills kids.com, the owner is indigo books. So I mean, it's just, I maybe didn't look the

way that they wanted it to look. Yeah. Yeah. The optics are brilliant. And this campaign

is about optics. It really, really is about optics. have, um, a billionaire who has a.

massive corporation whose husband owns himself massive corporations and is a primary owner

in this corporation as well. And they are viewed as like this, you know, all Canadian

couples, so to speak. And here they are literally funding hundreds of millions of dollars uh

and funneling it, using it as a sort of money laundering almost uh methodology of getting

money into Israel. They are using Canadian tax dollars and our charity system to funnel money

into Israel and into their military specifically, which is committing a genocide. So it's just

this all this darling Canadian optics look is BS. Okay. can't brush over the foundation

like that though. It's way worse. I mean, kills kids and funding a genocide, but like

it's just way worse than that too, right? So let's get into the foundation that Reisman

founded and spearheads. And I'd also like to paint that picture that you started to,

but let's fill it in a bit on this Canadian couple, but they're oligarchs. Like when we

talk about Canadian oligarchs, this is one of them. It's not just even about a bookstore.

Reisman's family has ties to politics, long ties to politics. Paul Martin as prime minister.

later on we'll talk about the Indigo 11 and the role she says she didn't play there. And

so a lot of political power, right? but this foundation that's at the heart of the boycott,

really, right, is how you were able to say that they definitively kill kids is really tied

to that lone soldier program. Do you wanna go into it? I have been brushing up on it this

morning, but I imagine you have been talking to people about this for a long time now.

So what... is this Lone Soldier Foundation and what's so wrong with it, right? It's a

charity. The Canadian Reparative Health Agency still recognize its charitable status, right?

People are working on that. A lot of people are working on that, but it's a charity. Yeah,

absolutely. I mean, everyone pulls on the heartstrings. Oh, well, like, and that's her line. You know,

she changes her line every five minutes or, know, oh, they're helping veterans and like,

how dare we. And like, oh, they're helping orphans. How dare we? Well, let's talk about what, you

know, the Hetzer Foundation is. So the Hetzer Foundation is a charity. The foundation

basically uh has scholarships for lone soldiers. It's a scholarship fund for lone soldiers.

And lone soldiers are foreign nationals who join the Israeli military. So we're talking,

they can come from anywhere, but lone soldiers... can come in three ways. They can either go

to Israel and join the IOF for a short period of time. They do their service, but they don't

get citizenship. Some of them do go and get citizenship. And the last category, which

is the smallest of the three, is that it's people who are either orphaned or have been isolated

from their family. in Israel. So that's the one that she likes to lean heavily on. But

the fact is, is that the organization gives scholarships to keep people in Israel after

they have completed service in the Israeli military. And then we can talk about what all the different

things that the Israeli military is doing from dispossession, from killing children. Quite

literally, they are in Gaza killing children. They are killing children in the West Bank.

I mean, to claim that Indigo or the CEO, the primary shareholder is not funding this genocide

is a ridiculous notion. At the end of the day, if you're putting money into a charity, you're

getting a tax break on that. You're sending it. You're giving it specifically to people.

You're paying people who are then using who have now killed people, killed children. And

on the other hand, your hypocrisy is. disgustingly on display because here in Canada, you're promoting

literacy, you're promoting, you know, um, you've got this beautiful kids section, you're creating

this experience where Indigo has been really personal for a lot of people, but then on the

flip side, you're literally destroying education in Guzda. You're, you're destroying, you know,

history and, and lives there. So it's really an inflammatory thing for them to even claim

that they're not. that they're not having a hand in this genocide. so I think it's just,

yeah, Hesseg is a big problem. Like, why are we finding lone soldiers and why are we finding

Canadians to go and fight in Gaza? Yeah, we're funding them in two ways, right? Through the

tax donations that are our tax dollars. And then, I mean, if you're still shopping at Indigo,

you're funding it that way by lining the pockets of these oligarchs who are on this fucking

mission. But one of the things about the lone soldier program that I think really irks me,

because we've had refuseniks on the show, know, Israelis are conscripted into the IOF, the

IDF. They don't have to go. They can go to prison instead. making a choice. Yeah, they

can make a choice. um But there is conscription. The lone soldier program, no wonder she leans

in on the domestic uh soldiers, the orphans. eh It's the encouraging people who are not

legally obligated to participate in the genocide whatsoever and luring them with money and

gifts and possible citizenship. she's doing this from Canada, right? So she's recruiting

and funding a foreign army from other places in the world as well as Canada and sending

them over. And then like the bonus. is then the genocide, right? Like this was an issue

for people in 2010, right? As the genocide has been continuous, the ethnic cleansing has

started at the NECPA. We understand that. But like this opposition, the Reisman and the Hessek

Foundation and the lone soldier program predated October 7th. But now it just seems incredible

that their charitable status hasn't been revoked. I found some numbers here. I'm sure you have

some too, but I thought like just to give people an idea, the foundation that Schwartz and Reisman,

that's the couple there, have provided to the foundation is $185 million over the past, I

think five years. And what- average? They average about 5 million a year. So over a lifetime

they've spent, they've actually sent um about almost 200 million to HESC. So it started in

2016 organization. And so they've been slowly funneling money in. um over the last, yeah,

and over the last five years, it's like, it's had an uptick and they average about 5 million.

Does that come from her profits at Indigo? I mean, surely. m ah That's like her primary

business. mean, they, it's their foundation. So everything goes into the Reisman Schwartz

Foundation. It is 40 % like if you look at how funds are distributed from the Reisman Schwartz

Foundation. And, and I'll be honest, uh the experts in this is just for peace advocate,

just peace advocates. They've done so much incredible work around this and there's amazing documentation

around this that they, that they pulled. They've done a freedom of information requests from

from CRA and they've compiled a lot of really great information, but uh effectively they've

sent over $300 million to Israel in various capacities. And if you look at that, like

185, I mean, that's a big chunk of it going straight to HESG. So they heavily favor HESG

in their donations when they're funneling money down. Sorry for interrupting. No, no, the clarification

was important. And I think like it just helps justify the boycott, right? um As well as

the, you know, quote unquote, inflammatory language that you used um to kind of catch

people's attention and ask about this. Because I think it horrifies people once they realize

because mainstream media, you know, way back when November, twenty, twenty three. November

2023, some activists threw washable. I'm always reminded by a friend that was washable red

paint and posters on the outside of an Indigo bookstore. We lovingly refer to them as the

Indigo 11 now. And I mean, that was, I don't know if that was like the kickstart of the

campaign, but very quite early on people. targeted Indigo as a pressure point. Do you

want to speak about the Indigo 11? Because I think it helps demonstrate the politicization

of Reisman. She's not just a bookstore owner who happens to, you know, fund charities that

have questionable outcomes. She is a Zionist. She supports this genocide and seemingly the

criminalization of anybody trying to stop it. Absolutely. mean, her she's litigious to the

core. And that was, you know, something that we factor in when we when we organize against

her. I think that so the Indigo 11, yes, they were not connected to the Indigo 11 and, you

know, they had their own legal. uh, legal situation that we, we want it. We didn't want to, we

didn't want to taint. want it, you know, they need to be able to, to go through that. Um,

and they were able to, to overcome that. But yeah, so they, they, they threw the paint,

they put the posters up, there were late night raids. It was national news. Um, and they,

The other interesting part was, and maybe you want to speak to this as well, is the direct

call to the TPS chief and the Toronto police chief and being able to get on the line with

the Toronto police chief and have that discussion and push this investigation forward, which

then to criminalize and harm these activists who were longtime activists. And uh one of

the things I will say, like I want to... want to say though about this, you mentioned earlier

was that this is a pressure point. In 2006 when the organization was founded, Hesseg, the foundation

was created. There were a number of like old Jewish ladies that used to stand outside the

Bay and Bloor location every Friday. So right when it started, the Jewish community was...

was holding Indigo to account, was holding Heather to account out there every Friday speaking

out against this. And so, you know, I think it's been for those who have been part of the

Palisade movement, the Palestinian solidarity movement, they've sort of they've known about

this and there's very few, you know, Canadian targets that we can really lay into at this

level. Like there's lots of American, there's lots of British, there's lots of multi-national,

but very few that are that have this type of visibility and have this type of power and

that are Canadian. And when we talk about that proximity to power, we also have to, so she

has this direct line to TPS. We know that she rubs shoulders with political elites and they

all do. mean, her husband also owns WestJet. And we also found through email leaks recently

that uh she was in direct contact with Benny Gantz. And she was a part, uh she funded

and supported an anti-BDS, like online cyber campaign and cyber attacks. So she's not just

some, you know, Canadian, just some lady, some rich white lady. She has direct lines to

power and she wields that power and she wields it to stomp on anything. that would harm Israel

and harm her business. Yeah, I am going to speak to that call to the police chief a little

bit. mean, we know she made, she was able within hours, you know, to have access to the police

chief, made two points of contact. And the way the Toronto police reacted to that paint and

posters was unreal. So within days, hate motivated charges were added. In the end, 10 night raids,

so, you know, middle of the night, people were dragged out of their homes wearing what they

were wearing when they were in bed. ah They were, their homes were turned upside down,

their devices taken from them. They were given... ridiculous unconstitutional bail conditions,

not allowed to speak to each other. Many of them lost their jobs and still do not have

employment. Two years later, I just recently hosted an event to raise money for the Toronto

Community Justice Fund and they were speaking there. know, 70 officers went to arrest these

folks. you're talking about like gangs and drug officers. showed up. Completely disproportionate.

Yeah. And not one criminal conviction after millions spent. And this didn't, they weren't

all fully kind of cleared until March, 2025. So a year and a half of legal drama plus, you

know, probation or whatever comes because the way that the system works, but in the end,

no criminal convictions. But that response, and a judge did rule. that she did not have

any impact on the case whatsoever. But there's no other way for me to reconcile that kind

of such early heavy-handed response. We've seen it since, but they just came out fully

swinging after that and you know, those are dots people can connect themselves I think.

So what's it feel like then when like you have all of this information? Oh wait, no, I have

one more little thing to get people riled up. I've got a little note there that I just, you

there's so many moments where I was just like, no, they didn't. But, uh you know, you have

to go back to 2009 to Operation Cast Lead. Okay, this is where it, heavy, heavy bombardment

of the Gaza Strip. and 1400 Palestinians were martyred and what did the foundation do? It

sent 160,000 dollars worth of gifts to soldiers who took part. This is the kind of like literally

rewarding them for killing children. So I don't know if I imagine indigo books in this gift

basket. I know that probably isn't what happened, but this is what I envision. This is how fucked

up. And you have all of this, right? You have all the, you might not have had that great

tidbit, but you just, you have all of this knowledge. You saved that for another time, but. And

then people are still coming at you with really pathetic defenses, you know? Why you shouldn't

be boycotting ingo. I mean. Forget about inconvenience because it is hard to find another bookstore.

Maybe we can link something to the episode for folks to replace it. I mean, that framing

that framing that initially started as it was anti-semitic, like how does that feel having

to feel that ridiculousness knowing what you know? It's the Hezbollah, right? It's the

propaganda and it's the default setting for folks when they hear that you're going after

Indigo and she's a Jewish woman and therefore you're anti-Semitic. Like how could you go

against it? you know, first of all, across the country and even in our organizing group,

we have people with Jewish backgrounds. We have people with Muslim backgrounds. We have people

with like, know, um like LGBTQT, like we have a variety of people. Like if one thing Indigo

is doing, it's bringing people together to hate on them because they, yeah, they suck. and

when we're talking about this critique of, of antisemitism, we have to go back to this concept

around, you know, the fact that they're oligarchs, they're not some small mom, paw run deli or

mom, paw run you know, small business, they are a massive, they are a corporation. They

are a massive corporation that makes like millions and millions of dollars. And so, you know,

they, have to put them into that context. And we also have to remember, we can switch out,

we can switch out their, their identity for anything. They don't have to be a Jewish.

could be, they could be anything. They could be atheist. doesn't even matter. It's irrelevant.

They are billionaires. their identifiers. That's good. They are billionaires. They're billionaires.

We don't like billionaires. mean, at the of the day, billionaires eat the rich. Like, what

are we, what are we doing? What are we doing? Um, giving them more money in general, like

even just as a society that's trying to support each other and build community, like they are

not there to build community. And I always. find it really funny when we have the criticism

about like, how could you be going after this, you know, this Canadian, this person that's

like, you know, she's got ah so many credentials and she's so important to us. And I'm like,

you know, it's fun when I literally had a train of thought and it got completely derailed.

But at the end of the day, like we are talking about a billionaire. We're not talking about

some our community. need to be, and that's what I was going to say, like we need to be

promoting our community. We need to be pushing small bookstores. We have people in our community,

our neighbors literally that we could be supporting. We could be, um, we could be helping. And there

are other options. Like we can talk about the other options that exist. But at the end of

the day, like just at a base level, let's take away the identity. She's a billionaire. She's

finding a foreign military. Um, and she's a hypocrite like, and like why and she's highly

litigious. And so if she really cared about the people, like, you know, why not engage

in a discourse? And quite frankly, she's she's she's lying about what her organization does

as a PR stunt to like reframe. Speaking of stunts before Christmas of 2025, I knew it was going

to happen, but it was so fun to watch online. And I texted a friend that I knew would have

been downtown. said, did you go shopping at Indigo yesterday? And their response was,

well, just to return something. um Let's talk about that, because I did love that. You love

that. It's not just a boycott, right? You folks are finding other ways to interrupt business

as usual. Yeah, we want to disrupt. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what we want

to do. And we have to remember that Well on one hand they're highly litigious and we don't

we don't want to. There is an open lawsuit as well. So trying to uh you know we don't want

them to also attach any financial uh dollar value to things. But at the end of the day

we want to disrupt. We want to make doing business like uncomfortable. And at the end of the

day like something like the economic like an economic boycott in this way can really make

an impact. So I can give you some. some background so in case folks don't know what that action

was, we based it on the, there was like an anti-ice action that happened in the US where

they had those ice scrapers at Home Depot. They all went to Home Depot. They purchased

17 cents ice scrapers and then they all queued up and returned the 17 cent ice scrapers in

protest of Home Depot's complicity with ice and so on and so forth. So looking at that,

We were talking about ways that we could potentially model something similar and how we could have

an impact. And we've discussed over the last year and a half, like with various organizers

across the country, know, uh actions around, they have people have independently returned

books, they've gone and they've purchased books or a core component of the campaign is really

just to waste time because time is money. How do we communicate with corporate corporations?

We communicate with corporations. with money by using money. And if we want their behavior

to change, we need to affect the things that are important to them and what affects what's

important. Like what's important to them is money. So things like bookmarking and stickering

are ways to impact their money. It's not damaging their product, but it's a nuisance. They have

to go, they have to, they have to peel these stickers off that say Heather picks genocide,

or they have to peel stickers off that say like 50 % off genocide. And We're not doing anything

they're not doing. They have the same stickers on their books. We often stick them on top

of their stickers. So it's not that they can't remove them. It's that they have to. They have

to go through and remove them. And so this is time and this is money. In the same way that

folks had lined up and they provide, they'll go to the till and at the end they'll just

say, actually, you know what, Indigo kills kids. I'm not really into this. And they'll walk

away. So they'll waste time that way. em And this was another way of wasting time and creating

a backlog. So if we think about um not just the returning of the books and how that mess.

So what we did, let me take a step back. What we did was we got folks to uh purchase books

at any Indigo. And then the idea is you can return at any Indigo. And then the idea was

basically to queue up and return. And some people and to create a backlog to kind of bottleneck

things. And on a day they had a book signing that day. It's like the busiest shopping day

of the year. It's the Saturday, the weekend before Christmas is the busiest shopping day

of the year. And so we create a bottleneck and a number of things, outcomes can happen. People

can get frustrated and walk away. So that's loss. the purchasing and returning. Um, the

numbers are going to show there's like an hour and a half of time on the busiest shopping

day of the year in a retail, uh, in a retail space where every hour counts and you've just

literally gave them a zero sales in that hour. In fact, you've probably given them negative

sales because they've returned things. And so now you're messing with their inventory system.

You've got the time that it takes for them to have to reshell all those books. You've got

people looking for books that they can't find because they're, they've been pulled off the

shelves because they've been returned. So all of these things, know, one of the critiques

that was shared with us was, you know, oh, like what's $3,000, like whatever, that's

a drop in the bucket. I was like, and we have to think of it, it's more than just the dollar

value of the books. It's everything else that goes into running a business that costs money.

Okay, yeah. And to that critique as well, one, you never know what drop is going to overflow

the bucket. We talk about that a lot. The smallest movements you just never know. You will never

know. You might not even know after it happens that that was the drop that counted. But we

all saw this action. This was really bad PR for Indigo, right? Because these lineups kind

of brought a little bit more attention to the boycotts. was a big deal. that... You know

how hard it is to break the algorithm and get your word out and get the message out? mean,

trust me, we all, had someone ask that last night in the photography course, right? How

do you then make sure as many people see your images? And it's like, well, sometimes it means

being disruptive, being a pain in the ass. And that is very valuable. So what do you

say though to Reisman's most recent kind of pivot away from my her identity as the target

to these kinds of actions hurt retail workers. You're attacking retail workers and like that's

like We can laugh, we've heard this critique before because we've seen folks do fill up

grocery carts and leave them because Galen Weston, we hate Galen Weston. I don't even know what

religion he is. We hate him just because he makes our groceries too much money. And that's

enough for me. of billionaires and money. And that's what it is. Well, then they'll protect

that under the fucking charter. But I would like to let's hit that though because It's

not an uncommon critique of when we go to retail outlets and cause a disruption. Sure.

I mean, I love to talk about all the union busting that Heather does and the stores that she

specifically closed down due to union busting or um the way that she by union busting at

one location. What they did was they hired a bunch more part time people and like forced

people to either quit or, you know, I mean, to claim that this is about workers, what

a comical response. And I'm sorry, you pay people minimum wage, like girl, get fucked.

That's uh their job, you pay them. We weren't vandalizing anything, we didn't damage goods.

There was no red, like I saw. years ago, somebody had, I think in Calgary, they dragged like

red paint through the store. Nothing like that. We just, pardon? Not judging. Yeah. It's just

a accident. Yeah. Oops. But at the end of the day, you know, we have to look at it and what

did we do? We just, what? We lined up and as customers we're entitled to. Are we not entitled

to purchase and change our minds? Are we not entitled to like, and it's part of our charter

rights for expression. We are allowed to disrupt. We are allowed to protest. It is our duty to

do this. And I find it comical that the who critique with like, this is about workers are

not people that are out there with the unions. They're not the ones actually supporting any

sort of workers rights. They're the same people that are like, get a job when you're out there,

approach this. They're the same people that are really actually anti-worker themselves.

it's not anything out of the realm of what the workers do on a day-to-day basis. It's just

scaled up. Yeah, scaled up. And I imagine the folks partaking in these actions don't take

it out on the workers. I mean, as an organizer, we usually make that explanation, right? You

know, like when you're calling MPs office and you know it's a staffer that's likely going

to take your message. Like we do not chew them out. We do not, you know, make it their problem

because they've been put in between us and our opponents. 100%. Yeah. And, you know,

and that's a big uh part of the campaign is actually like reminding folks that we're here

to educate. That is our primary responsibility. And I think we have moments and we see this,

right, where we see folks where we're upset. what? Almost three years, two and a half years

in, three years in, we're exhausted. People are frustrated. I know with these actions,

know, CJA loves to have their by-court um that counters, which is like also just fun to make

fun of. But overall, you know, there's a lot of counter action that comes at, at the people

that are running these actions. And so I know it's, it's easy for folks to get worked up.

It's easy for them to get heated. You know, I've seen stuff where people, you know, maybe

have heckled folks as they entered the store. And one of the things that at a national organizing

level, what we try to remind folks is, you know, it amazes me how many people just don't know

about the Indigo boycott. There's it's one of the most common responses when you talk to

people and you're educating them and you say like, engage with them on why we're boycotting

Indigo. Many of them are like, oh, I have no idea. uh They become quite surprised. So it's

incredible how many people still are unaware. And so I think that That's one thing to remember

that as organizers, like we really want to be bringing people into the movement. And we really

want to be bringing people, um, keeping that door open and keeping that, pardon me, that

conversation going with folks. And so it's really important to remember that one, when we're

out there, um, how we present ourselves or like how we engage with people, including the workers,

you know, um, in order to get people to come and join the boycott, join the movement and

like, you whatever your gateway boycott, so to speak, and get your foot in the door. And

also we're representing Palestinians. We are still speaking for Palestinians if we're not

Palestinian. And so how we approach things and how we um amplify, we have to be careful that

we're also not harming our Palestinian comrades either and that we're doing right by them.

So it's really uh important that we Like we don't, we don't want to go for the workers.

They are, they're doing what they need to do. And honestly, some of the workers like, you

know, work it from the inside. Like I've heard some really fun stuff that some of the workers

are partaking them in themselves that are also, um, you know, participating in their own ways.

And even in some of the same ways that we participate and, but they're just doing it on the inside

and they just. It makes me laugh and I love it and I'm happy that people are finding ways

to express themselves and to call it out where it needs to be called out. I love that. By

the way, my mom had this uh Indigo gift card around the holidays. We don't remember when

she got it, but she had it and she was like, uh okay, I know there's a boycott. What do

I do? I'm like, you go use that because right now they have your hundred dollars. So for

clarification, if you have a gift card, you spend that and not one penny. You know, like,

don't know how you do that. She tried her best. I don't know what she ended up leaving money

on the card or spending a couple bucks in the store. But she was she came to me for clearance

first. And I was like, no, no, no, they're not keeping your money. uh And we want to make

sure that when you use those books or those gift cards, use them to purchase Palestinian

authors specifically. That's because at the end of the day, like the authors are getting

some money. Though if you're going to be giving Indigo some of that money or if you're going

to use that money, at least you know some of that gift card money is going to Palestinian

authors. So we really encourage that. the end of the day, authors don't get to decide where

their books are distributed. ah So that's another thing that we want to make sure we encourage

folks not to shit on authors who have their books there. encouraging them not to have signings

there would be great. They can definitely talk to their publishers about doing their signings

or their readings at other independent bookstores. But certainly we want folks to think about

the fact that because authors don't decide, you will see, know, Eve Engler's book on the

shelves there, you will see Indigenous books, will see, what was it, Sayutibi's was on the

top 100 books of 2025, which was kind of comical, but he himself is a supporter of the campaign.

Just thinking about those types of things, we want to make sure that we are targeting

the right groups. um And really at the end of the day, it's Indigo. And educating folks

on why Indigo is a problem. You talked about keeping the door open and bringing as many

people into the campaign as possible. You are very deliberate with your language. The

campaign is very deliberate with its language to that end. sometimes you get criticized

for it as well. Let's talk about that a little bit, the kind of word choices that you make

um and like weigh the cost benefit a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the

things we have to remember is that as much as we want to tear down the system, we still live

in the system and we can't overnight decide, you know, it's not going to change. So we have

to consider the mediums that we're using and the way that people consume information. And

so that's why we chose to uh take a bit of a more marketing type approach to things. So

we use their brands, they're similar to their branding, we use their colors uh and really

we mimic them. It's sort of a mockery, right? And that's actually the counter to the copyright

argument is that actually in the end, uh it's our right to do that. It's not copyright infringement

if we are critiquing. That being said, in that uh idea of like we're using social media,

so having these sort of like marketing type style graphics, things that are easy to consume,

easy to grab, easy to share is one of the things. And one of the other things that we like

to do is we like to, I'm really grateful for some of these creators. There's been some

really great ones that have discussed, you know, like language and how we engage with, with

groups. And if we think about. If we think about it from, you know, whether we're in a political

sphere or we're in a marketing sphere, like there are people that are going to be decided,

right? One way or another. And there's always that middle, those middle group, that middle

group that we need to appeal to. And so one of the things we've considered is the fact

that we don't want to create barriers. So one of the. Some of the feedback as we were creating

content, were noticing people kept asking, what does IOF mean? like, IOF, IOF, it was a barrier.

We were finding that people were getting stuck on it and we were having to explain it or spell

it out. So we've adjusted our language to Israeli military instead of IOF. Yeah. So just for

folks who are wondering what is she talking about? So do you want to explain the difference

between IOF and IDF? Absolutely. So IOF is the Israeli occupation force versus the Israeli

defense force. The common critique, what are they defending? They're actually occupying

uh or offending. you know, depending on who you are, might say Israeli occupation force,

Israeli offense force. uh The idea being a mockery of their language. em And it's something that

counter protesters or anti or pro-Palestinian, should say, uh activists, like what the language

that we'll use to highlight the occupation component of Israel. um But using abbreviations was

a barrier. The other thing is people get... which when you start or uncomfortable squirming,

when you start talking about, when you start using words like Zionist or Jewish and because

of the conflation and the messiness that, um, that, uh, has barrests have done a fairly

good job up to this point in doing, um, we try and stay away from that language. There are

moments where, where it calls for it, but overall we try and stay away from the language just

to create accessibility, uh, to, to highlight the fact that this campaign is not about an

identity. This campaign is about, you can sub her out for anything. At the end of the day,

you've got a billionaire using our charity system to get a tax break to send money to

a foreign military. And that foreign military is committing genocide. that is the bare bones

of it. um And so by creating, by... By not using certain types of language, we can help

keep that door open and keep that conversation going because we just find that when you start

using um that link, people tend to just kind of turn off or they turn away. I I had one

woman at an action in the city that I live in. um We were outside at the last day of action

and she came up. to us and started asking us questions. And she was like, how do even know

this? How do even know it's $200 million or whatever, $185 million, right? And I was like,

well, the CRA publishes, it's a charity, it's a registered charity. It's listed on their

website, like on the CRA website, there's lots of very public information about how much money

the Reese M. Schwartz Foundation sends to... sends to Hesseg Foundation. And she goes, yeah,

well, how do you even know that Hesseg even does this? I was like, it's literally on their

website. And so everything's They rang about it. That's how we know. They got video- only

thing they did was change it to Hebrew after we launched. So they took away the English

option, but hello Google Translate and Way Way Back Machine. There's many ways to see exactly

what they're doing and they didn't change their Canada help. It's just the attempts to opposite,

like, obfuscate, but also in this very sloppy way is quite funny. But that being said, the

facts stand for themselves. We don't need to shove counter narrative down their throat.

We can just use the facts and the facts speak for themselves. people, they say it themselves.

And the joke is, Indicator kills kids, they say it themselves. I mean, they own the domain,

for goodness sake. What else do you need? They own the domain that says Indigo Kills Kids.

So what do you want? I completely understand what you're talking about in terms of trying

to appeal to as many people. And we know definitely some words are triggers. But I do want to acknowledge

there that it's not so much imposing an ideology, but refusing to legitimize another. So some

people will take the conscious choice and we talked about this before we it again. I try

in my writing not to use Israel, the word Israel. It legitimizes the state for some, right? Using

that language helps solidify the right for that to even exist the way that it does, right?

As an occupation, an illegal occupation, right? So even IOF for some. is a problem because

it's still uh a bit of a form of legitimization. But yeah, it's about kind of being defiant

because there's a lot of normalization that goes around simply that state of Israel, right?

Whereas recognizing Palestine is some sort of question, but recognizing this illegal occupation

as having a right to exist is just unquestionable now. It's just standard. I do understand

some of the pushback that you receive for um not using the word Zionist and instead using

the word Israel, but I do appreciate the explainer there and some campaigns serve different purposes,

right? um And everyone's kind of got to decide how they can be as effective as possible while

walking this very difficult line. that we're all just kind of trying to figure out. So

I wanted to give you space to definitely talk about that. And that's choices that some people

might make ah even when they're not talking about Palestine, when they're talking about

landlords or the language that they might try to use to either maybe you think it fires

some people up, maybe it's turning more people away. And that measurement is like hard to

tell as well, but it's interesting to hear a marketing. approach. What's coming up?

Oh, go ahead. Sorry. No, that's okay. I think that's a really great. Uh, thank you for framing

that because at the end of the day, we just, want people to step into it. We can radicalize

them once they're here, but we need them in at the end of the day. Right. So we need to

use whatever entry point we can. And, um, it's not going to be, it's already not comfortable

for people. So, um, why not? I don't want to say why not be a soft landing because I don't

think that's what we are, but, um, you know, why not just remove barriers and people come

along, people radicalize and they change their tune as they learn more. What's next for the

campaign? I read, you know, I think it was, I'm so bad with acronyms, maybe it's in my

notes. CJPME had a quick fact sheet that I'll link a bunch of resources in the show notes,

folks, so you can know exactly where she gets these numbers from, right? But um one of the

things that they, They had three points to when will this boycott stop and they just seemed...

Um, never like that. Yeah, it feels like that, right? They need to hit all those points. It

was like, um, you know, the Reisman Schwartz Foundation stops donating to HESC, but they

founded it. Um, the, the occupation ends. There was another one there, but like for you

in the campaign, what is the end goal? Um, I think it depends who you ask. I think people

have different motivators. Um, I think. You know, we have our campaign goals stated explicitly

on our website. We want uh Indigo or Heather Reisman to stop funding the Hessex Foundation

for them to either step down as CEO and completely divest from Indigo, like separate themselves

completely from the organization. um And, you know, so, and to have the CRA revoke the Hessex

Charity status. So these are, these are our. um These are our goals, campaign goals, and

we're pushing in the ways that we can. So right now, for example, there is a petition that's

out. You will have to link the number because I always get all the numbers jumbled together,

but that Heather MacPherson is sponsoring uh to calling on the government to investigate

IOS soldiers uh that have Canadians that have served in the Israeli military specifically.

Uh, and calling for the investigation of HESG as well specifically. So, um, thank you to

the person who put in that petition. So that's last I checked. might be a little bit dated

this number. It was around 9,000 signatures. Um, and, uh, the petition closes, uh, in

April. So of course we want to be pushing that and we want to be pushing folks to be chatting

to their MPs and telling them that this is important. You know, um, we've been also criticized because

we, um, We like to create, have a series called Heather's Picks, which highlights or showcases,

if you will, um the wonderful achievements um of the Canadians who are participate, Canadian

Loan Soldiers. So we love to showcase um that they participated, they're Canadians, and

some have participated in gives us so, know, uh We've posted that online and that comes

from the Maples Find IDF Soldier website. don't go digging. oh We haven't found anything

outside of that. Everything is publicly available. um So I think it's really important that we

are also focusing on the fact that they walk amongst us. They're business owners, they're

food truck owners, they're... uh restaurant owners, they're, you know, your gym, there's

like a, you know, Krav Maga craft that's around. Like these are, they walk amongst us and we

are allowing it. We are allowing people who have served in a foreign military, who literally

murdered children, um, walk amongst us and, and we really need to be looking into that.

And so that's, that's another, uh, push. want to keep mobilizing people to organize actions

in their own way, whether You know, they're out there flyering. have flyers and uh such

on our website so folks can download some stuff and print whatever works for them and make

sure that they're out there letting people know like the issues with Indigo. You don't have

to stand in front of an Indigo to educate about Indigo. That's the other great thing. And

there's also themselves as people like you can. You can just not shop at Indigo. There's

lots of great indie bookstores on our website. We partnered with ah Watermelon Maps to specifically,

they have like a uh boycott Indigo filter, like on their website specifically, which is linked

on our website as well, that ah allows you to see bookstores that have, um that are like

watermelon friendly or Palestine friendly. uh Apartheid Free uh BC or like the Apartheid

Free Movement has bookstores or businesses across the country. They don't just sell books. They

sell like all sorts of random shit like homeware and sex toys even. it's like a of other. Yeah.

know, squishables. They sell squishables. Those are made by a company based in the occupation.

Okay. Good to know. Yeah, I know. We bought this one beforehand. So you know, sometimes

you just, yeah, when you know better, you do better, right? Like we can't, we can't be perfect

and like perfection shouldn't be the goal. You know, we really, the goal is to just continuously

improve. And you know, I can't, I can't stop. There's certain things in my home when we go

to the grocery store, like, I do the best I can. At end of the day, and we should all be

doing, doing what we can. And one way we can do is there's lots of online option, other

options that are not Amazon or Indigo that you can buy books at. Um, and we've listed some

of those on our website and our socials. Um, so there's lots of different ways that you

can participate in the campaign without, um, yeah, even if you don't want to. Yeah. Yeah.

Or throw red paint or like, know, we have entry level. We have entry level. Yeah, we have

phases, you know, like you don't have to like we will radicalize you, but you don't have

to get there right away. No, I, I very much appreciate coming on the show to explain

the madness to the methodology and whatnot. We will folks really do jump into the show

notes. You should always go into the show notes, but there's always a call to action. So we'll

link you to the petition. will link you to their website, the portal that gives you posters

that you can print out yourself so that you can jump right into this campaign if you want,

and as well as all the kind of supporting documentation so that when someone randomly asks, how do

you know this? ah You've got the receipts already with you, but ah yeah, I very much appreciate

this. It's a slog, right? taking criticisms from both sides and... just trying to do what

we can do within the realm that's available to us, right? And every point of pressure

is a valid one, I think, at this point, right? Like, it's been all hands on deck. Everyone

has kind of looked to the institutions around them. And I agree with you. I think this is

one of these kind of Canadian institutions, like, you know, maybe not official. It's not

our courts. It's not our schools. It's not... but we hold it in very high regard and it

needs to be taken down a few notches knowing what we know now, right? About the foundation

and its role in the genocide. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for letting us talk

about it. I think it's not very often that we get this opportunity, so I really appreciate

you sharing it with your audience. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you came to the right place. Thank

you. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining

us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Halu-Quintero. Blueprints

of Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter

at BPEofDisruption. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo, please

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let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.