Bookselling is not a crime: Solidarity with The Educational Bookshop Jerusalem

Support The Educational Bookshop HERE.

On the morning of Feb 10th we were horrified by news of our friend & fellow bookseller Mahmoud being arrested by Israeli police alongside his nephew & bookseller Ahmed.

Palestinian booksellers, from the internationally celebrated Educational Bookshop in occupied Jerusalem, detained in handcuffs, their bookshop ransacked.

Mahmoud visited Edinburgh last October with Matthew Teller co-editor of the anthology Daybreak in Gaza. Their book launch, hosted by the Gazan scholar Dr Malaka Shwaikh -  drew a crowd far too big for our own bookshop space so we celebrated the book at Augustine United Church around the corner, with over 100 guests attending to hear the two share human stories, memories and art of Gaza.

We had been in conversation with Mahmoud about creating a 'sister bookshop' link between Lighthouse and the Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem, to offer mutual support and celebrate shared values. The bookshop has been severely affected by the occupation and the Israeli assault on Gaza long before these arrests were made. Mahmoud's bookshop is a family run literary institution that has been a bastion of ideas and connection for decades, to see it ransacked by police and its booksellers locked up and persecuted under spurious charges is truly chilling. Though they have now been released, the case continues and they remain under house arrest, with galling bail terms that limit all contact with the bookshop and the trade.

Bookselling is not a crime and I echo the MD of the UK Bookselling Association Meryl Halls in saying "all bookshops should be respectfully allowed to function as peaceful spaces of intellectual refuge and freedom of expression, and the booksellers who facilitate them be protected physically, mentally and operationally from all forms of aggression and suppression."

This is a true in Jerusalem as it is in Edinburgh - we saw an outpouring of solidarity when our own bookshop was a target of harassment a few years ago and it is heartening to see the book industry and readers more widely step up in solidarity with Mahmoud and Ahmed.

We join Mahmoud's publisher Saqi, as well as friends and colleagues across the trade, from Pluto Press to the Alliance of Radical Booksellers in solidarity with the bookshop and its booksellers. Please donate generously to a new crowdfunder to support the bookshop and stay tuned for a wider solidarity campaign - if you are a book worker or reader who would like to be actively involved please do reach out via email.

At the launch of Daybreak In Gaza