For many, the Indigo boycott is a clear example of how the people united will never be defeated
By Lama Alshami
Arts and politics have always had a strong relationship. Artists often use their work as a medium to express their political ideologies and promote social change.
When it comes to Gaza, the Canadian art community has not been silent. With a national call to boycott retail book giant Indigo, several groups have responded with a united campaign.
On Aug. 12, an account named Indigo Kills Kids showed up on Instagram and X. Their first post was captioned: “Ship it! We’ve got your current best seller on the way along with the blood of 20,000 children. Every dollar you spend at Indigo supports the ongoing slaughter of Palestinian children. Boycott Indigo.”
Self-described as a social campaign, the people behind it are calling for a boycott of Indigo because of “its CEO’s involvement in the oppression of Palestinians and its complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” as written on their website.
In a mere two months, the account gained over 4,000 followers on Instagram and more than 1,000 on X.
The boycott is called due to Indigo’s ties to the HESEG Foundation. The foundation’s website states it functions as a charity, providing scholarships to people with no family in Israel to fund their university career, provided that they serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Indigo CEO and founder, Heather Reisman, established this foundation in 2005 for what they call “Lone Soldiers.” In Hebrew, the word “heseg” means achievement.
The HESEG website states that boys must serve at least 24 months in the IDF, while girls only need to complete 12 months. They say the “achievement fund” hopes to foster the next generation of zionists, leaders, trailblazers and entrepreneurs.
“Achievement Fund scholarship recipients are obligated to contribute and give back to Israeli society,” the foundation writes on its website in Hebrew.
Indigo Kills Kids mentions that the HESEG foundation typically spends over $5M annually on grants and scholarships supporting volunteers enlisting in the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).
Raiss Hamed, a spokesperson for the Indigo Kills Kids campaign says that the HESEG foundation “has a mandate to give incentives for people to go and join the Israeli Occupation Forces.”
He says they are using both Canadian consumer money and receiving tax breaks for sending money to Israel.
Back in 2010, during Israeli Operation Cast Lead on Gaza which killed over 1,400 Palestinians, including 300 children, in 22 days, HESEG representatives gave out $160,000 worth of gifts to participating Israeli soldiers.
The Canada Revenue Agency has policies prohibiting the use of donations to support the armed forces of another country. However, the HESEG foundation has maintained its charity status, despite many attempts to open an audit against them.
The Jewish National Fund of Canada, for example, had their charitable status revoked after using their donations to build infrastructure for the IDF.
An investigation by the Charity Report found that the HESEG Foundation is among the top 20 private foundations that receive the most donations in Canada. The HESEG Foundation was one of the top 3 donation recipients, coming in at third place. They received $45.3 million over the five years between 2014/2015 and 2018/2019.
In 2022 alone, they spent almost $8 million on foreign activities.
Indigo Kills Kids estimates that $180 million have been sent to fund genocide using the HESEG foundation. They clarify that this is $180 million in tax breaks that the government gives to registered charities.
“Until it stops, we’re gonna keep going,” the spokesperson said.
According to Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, the boycott against Indigo is not recent. In 2006, the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid led the boycott movement against the retail chain, picketing in front of stores across Canada.
It was a response to a call from the Palestinian civil society in 2005 to use economic pressure to force Israel into compliance with international law. The Boycott Divestment Sanctions Coalition in Canada writes that from 2006 to 2019 boycotts of Indigo took place weekly in Toronto, Montreal and other cities across the country.
Indigo Kills Kids has made a list of demands on their website, saying they will keep boycotting Indigo until they are met.
The demands are as follows: “Heather Reisman and Gerald Schwartz remove themselves as Directors of the HESEG Foundation or until Reisman and Schwartz sell the entirety of their shares in Indigo Books; the CRA holds accountable Reisman, Schwartz, and all directors of Canadian charities funding the IOF [IDF] and illegal settlements in the West Bank.”
The organization affirms that only when it is crystal clear that no funds from Indigo are being used to fund genocide will the boycott end.
This campaign is endorsed by the Canadian BDS Coalition, Jews Say No To Genocide, Just Peace Advocates, Showing Up For Racial Justice, World Beyond War and the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.
Hamed says that what prompted the Indigo Kills Kids campaign was the ongoing complicity and support from Canadian-run businesses in the genocide in Gaza.
He explains, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has always been a powerful activism tool, providing momentum for the boycott movement.
On Nov. 10, 2023, protesters splashed red paint and plastered posters at the Indigo bookstore at Bay and Bloor. The posters were of a fake book cover with Indigo CEO Heather Reisman’s face, stamped with the “Heather’s pick” sticker, with the title “Funding Genocide. Underneath the title was a fake quote reading, “I’m happy to use profits from your purchases to fund the Israeli army and bomb civilians.”
A day later, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) conducted pre-dawn raids — operations typically used in criminal investigations, counter-terrorism operations or military action, carried out in the early hours of the morning — on the homes of those they believed to be responsible.
They ransacked homes, broke down doors, confiscated cell phones and arrested anyone present.
11 people were arrested in what TPS called a “hate-motivated” crime, assigning their Hate Crimes Unit to the case.
In May, the Crown quietly dropped charges against four of the 11 people charged with mischief and criminal harassment. Seven people are still being prosecuted in relation to the Nov. 10 vandalism.
When asked about the importance of boycott movements for the Palestinian cause, Hamed says, “If one Zionist entity like Indigo is to fall, it will send shock waves across all other Zionist business entities, and it will show the power of people as a collective, which cannot be defeated.”
He says the boycott is to show zionists that they cannot carry on their businesses as usual while funding genocide.
At the core of the “Zionist machine,” he says, is money. “BDS — it shakes them to the core,” Hamed says.
Tessnim Abouisteite, a Palestinian-Canadian, was doing research on which businesses to boycott when she found Indigo on the list. “[I] didn’t even have to think twice and immediately started boycotting it,” she said.
For Abouisteite, it’s important to know she’s not funding genocide or killing innocent people through her buying power. She says she has begun to borrow books from the public library instead of supporting the retail chain.
She says for her to even think about supporting Indigo again, the company would have to show that they’ve cut ties with funding genocide and provide a public apology as well.
However, despite the support of many pro-Palestinians, the boycott campaign has faced numerous challenges along the way.
On Aug. 29, Indigo Kills Kids was sent a cease and desist letter from Indigo’s legal team.
The letter states the following:
- Immediately remove the infringing domain indigokillskids.ca from your website host and transfer the domain to Indigo Books & Music Inc.;
- Immediately cease and desist all use of Indigo Trademarks and copyright-protected work of Indigo and any variants thereof, including any mark or work similar in appearance, sound and/or meaning;
- Immediately remove all false and defamatory content related to Indigo from your website;
- Cease any further conduct intended to unlawfully interfere with the business of Indigo or cause economic or reputational harm; and
- Provide written confirmation within three (3) business days that you have complied with these demands.
After refusing to comply, they received notice of a court hearing two weeks later. Indigo called on courts to require Canadian internet service providers to block all domains associated with Indigo Kills Kids, including the website and social media accounts.
Shortly after, the campaign changed its website’s domain name from “indigokillskids” to “boycottindigobooks.”
When searching for the old domain name, the following message is displayed: “Please be advised that access to the domain name indigokillskids that you are looking for has been blocked by the attached Order of the Court issued on September 17, 2024, on behalf of Indigo Books & Music Inc. in Federal Court File No. T-2304-24.”
The domain name was blocked through an interim order under a copyright trademark infringement lawsuit. The only other time the Canadian government granted injunctions to block domains was concerning copyright-infringing pirate broadcasts.
In response to the injunction the campaign posted, “We don’t need a domain to tell everyone that #IndigoKillsKids.”
However, following an interlocutory injunction, their Instagram account was also banned and removed by Meta. Undeterred, they now operate a new account with the handle “boycottindigobooks.”
On Oct. 24, the group posted a letter on their new account stating that the injunction was granted for two years and could be extended. They have publicly posted the decision and the injunctions on their website.
They wrote in the caption, “In a massive overreach of the law, Indigo managed to Israel us, forcing us to give up what is ours by claiming they’re the only ones who can use it.”
For context, the Urban Dictionary described the term ‘Israeled’ as “when a person tells you that your property is theirs (when it obviously isn’t), and demands you just give this property to them, and if you refuse, they take it by force and the law will somehow be on their (Israeling) side.”
“It is unprecedented in Canadian history that you have blocked an information website,” Hamed says.
The website only tells consumers where they buy their books, he explains.
To further educate others, the campaign organized a national day of action, writing on Instagram that there will be “no business as usual, while Canada supports a genocide.”
On Sept. 25, activists from Indigo Kills Kids and other pro-Palestine groups gathered at 50 Indigo locations across the country.
Protests took place in more than 40 different cities across the country.
The protesters conducted read-ins, banner drops, speeches, prayers and performances.
As described by Hamed, the campaign is entirely grassroots-run, with no central organization. “It’s a whole bunch of activists, different groups from across the country that have come together; hence the power of grassroots activism.”
Every poster, every advertisement, and all the materials are paid for by the activists themselves, Hamed explained. “We put out our own money and more importantly our own precious time,” he says.
The organization says the national day of action saw an excellent turnout with a receptive audience.
They say many customers they talked to at Indigo stores did not know about Indigo’s CEO’s support for the Israeli Occupation Forces, and by extension the slaughter of nearly 16,000 children in Gaza. Consumers have a right to know where their money is going, and that is what they are doing in their campaign – educating consumers about Indigo and the HESEG Foundation.
Hamed says the campaign is simply informing consumers on where their money is going.
At the protest, they provided alternative local bookstores to support instead.
They often highlight independent bookstores, providing a list of alternative places to find books on their website and showcasing places to visit on their Instagram page.
“The objective [of the campaign] is not to make somebody go out of business,” Hamed says, instead, it is to raise awareness of how individual Canadians’ purchases are involved in massacres of innocent people on the other side of the world.
Hamed says they aim to inform and empower ordinary Canadians to make conscious decisions about how they’re spending their money. They want Canadians to question the slightest thought of their money being used to slaughter innocent civilians and further perpetuate violence in the Middle East.
Hamed and the campaign hope citizens will instead support local bookstores and businesses that don’t fund genocide and violence.
“When you are buying a book from Indigo, you are killing kids,” he said.
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