She should be celebrated as one of this country’s most successful entrepreneurs and most generous philanthropists, not protested against

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For months, anti-Israel demonstrators have been engaged in an insidious campaign targeting one of Canada’s greatest success stories: Heather Reisman and her Indigo bookstore empire.

The crusade against the Canadian retailer is part of the broader boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel that gained new life among those who have singled out the Jewish state as the source of all evil since Hamas’s brutal October 7 massacre.

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The boycott campaign took a particularly dark turn last November, when protesters vandalized an Indigo store in downtown Toronto, papering it with posters accusing Reisman, whose philanthropy has supported Jewish communities in Canada and Israel, of funding genocide, and defacing its glass door with red paint. Eleven people were charged with “hate-motivated” mischief and criminal harassment (though the charges against four of those individuals were subsequently dropped).

But that did not deter the activists, including many academics, who have been sticking up for the alleged vandals, arguing that their actions were a legitimate form of political expression, that Reisman was targeted for her political views, not because she’s Jewish, and that the criminal charges are intended to distract attention from the war in Gaza.

Nothing could be further from........

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