Leaders of a prominent West Side synagogue are threatening to cancel a book fair next month unless a nearby store ditches a pro-Palestine children’s book.
“P is for Palestine” teaches children the alphabet using Palestinian references. But Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue said it also glorifies violence.
“The book states that ‘I is for Intifada,’ Arabic for rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or grownup!” Hirsch said in an open letter posted on the temple’s website. “The intifada was not ‘a rising up for what is right.’ It was a mass descent into immorality.”
The book by Golbarg Bashi is carried by Book Culture on Columbus. Bookstore owner Chris Doeblin didn’t respond to a request for comment.
