Following our very respectful conversations with Powerhouse and East City Books, we were hoping for some more good news. Sadly, this was not the case with White Whale Books.
With their permission, we bring you the full correspondence. We, personally, would never feel comfortable in the store based on these reactions alone, but as always, we will include this in the shopper experience column of the database so everyone can make their own informed decisions.
August 29th - Petition starters:
Good evening,
This petition we launched addresses you.
We believe the petition makes it clear that we're not in the business of silencing any voices, on the contrary, we just want to be included as well.
We got a report that your store shows bias (you're not alone) and upon checking on your site we couldn't find in stock some very basic books (which are mentioned in the petition but we checked a longer list) about the Jewish and Israeli experience.
You'll see in many of the comments that we are big lovers and supporters of independent bookstores, and it's been hard to feel intentionally excluded.
Most of us also see ourselves as progressives. We would love to see a more balanced representation about a complicated region in conflict.
We're hoping this will start a dialogue and launch an effort to be more inclusive.
If you have any comment on the matter, we will gladly post it. If you intend on taking steps towards a more inclusive representation, we will gladly remove you from the petition.
Naturally, you are entitled to your opinion and your stand on issues, and our community is entitled to choose what to support. If that happens to align, then wonderful.
Thank you very much.
PS - this petition was launched before the recent events at Powerhouse, but what happened over there proved a point - there's a systematic issue to handle.
August 30th - White Whale Books:
Hello,
Thanks for reaching out. This accusation is patently false; our store is built around inclusivity, anti-racism, and highlighting traditionally marginalized voices. In the city that experienced the devastating Tree of Life shooting in 2018, we are keenly aware of the dangers of antisemitism, and making our store a safe space for ALL remains our top priority.
To address some of the issues raised in this petition, we have held book launches with Jewish authors whose works often specifically explore Jewish identity (including this summer), and we do, indeed, stock some of the books you mention in the petition and in your response to other stores. We will not apologize for not carrying others or catering to what anyone else demands we carry; we are a small store with limited shelf space and a curated selection, and that selection includes many, many Jewish voices.
If our inclusion on this list is based on our "ceasefire" display, we stand by our choice to call for an end to the ongoing massacres of the Palestinian, Congolese, Sudanese, and Haitian peoples, as well as other civilians around the world who are caught in the crosshairs of political maneuvering. Yes, this includes the Israeli hostages taken on October 7th, and yes, that display *does* include books by Israeli writers. Our stance is a humanitarian one. NO child should live in fear or without food, water, shelter, and a right to a free life.
We are always open to dialogue, and have had many thoughtful conversations surrounding this issue and our display with our Pittsburgh community and with our staff--Jews and gentiles alike. We reject the suggestion that our store excludes Jewish voices or promotes antisemitism in any way, and positing that we must carry certain books or authors to "prove" this is a bad faith argument we will not engage with.
Best,
Jill Yeomans
Owner, White Whale Bookstore
August 30th - Petition starters:
Dear Jill,
While we appreciate the store taking a stand against all forms of hate, there's a difference between claiming to be inclusive and actually being inclusive. We try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, as we truly believe, and mostly hope, as is the case with you, that such omission is not intentional which is why we reach out to create dialogue.
First of all, the reason we reached out is not your ceasefire display as A. we're not even sure what you're referring to, feel free to direct us to it, and B. we have no objections to the idea of a ceasefire, which we believe is what most people with common sense want, even if there are disagreements on what that looks like. Most sane people don't want bloodshed.
We also didn't say that the specific issue is lack of Jewish voices. We said "Jewish and Israeli." And that was no mistake. If Palestine is a nationality, the equivalent to books about Palestine/by Palestinian authors, is books about Israel/by Israeli authors. And that means multiple perspectives, not just ones who perceive Israel as the big bad wolf. We also never claimed or accused the store of antisemitism. The word antisemitism doesn't even appear in the petition and our first guess would never be to assume an independent bookstore supports antisemitism.
And since you read our previous email, as well as the petition, you know that our intention was never to silence other voices, we just want to be included too.
The reason you've been contacted is because we checked your stock online. If you truly spoke to other stores they'll tell you our correspondence has been respectul, and more than once we take the time to let people respond and plead their case, and we only post the correspondence publicly with their permission.
And while you do have in stock (not available to order, but physically in the store) People Love Dead Jews and Jews Don't Count (which was written by David Baddiel when he still held zero care for Israel, something that has changed since Oct. 7th but isn't reflected in his book), none of the other books seems to be in stock.
Meanwhile, your Palestinian selection has 13 books in stock.
Look, we're more than happy to be proven wrong. In fact, when it comes to this, we want nothing more than to be wrong. As of this moment in time, it doesn't look like we are wrong, and it mostly looks like, as far as we can tell from an online search, which is what's available to us, that your collection doesn't have pro-Israeli voices, which is why we mentioned bias.
Whether you want to direct us to books in your collections that aren't exclusively written by anti-zionists, or you want some suggestions for books you can bring into the store, we'll be more than happy to discuss it and even say - we were wrong.
You're right, you don't have to prove anything to anyone, and even if you do choose as a business to not worry about what zionists think, it's totally your call, though I have a feeling we won't agree on what that term means.
But as consumers, we have the right to decide where we spend our money, based on the information we have at hand. Our efforts are exactly because we don't just want to throw small businesses under the bus, but to see how to make spaces more welcoming for us, too.
This is why our spreadsheet also includes a shopping experience column, in which we put as much information as we can, as we know different people draw their lines differently.
And of course, let us know if we can share this correspondence publicly.
Thank you,
September 6th - Petition starters:
Hey there Jill,
Out of an abundance of respect, I wanted to follow up. We've now had multiple conversations with different stores who worked with us on having a more diverse collection when it comes to Israeli/Jewish perspectives. We'd love to do the same with WWB.
We're very patient, and very open to brainstorming, but we can't do much without response, other than mention on our list that the store chose not to engage, which is absolutely your right, it just saddens us.
We will certainly give you guys a few days, but we didn't even know if we could publish your previous response, and without your consent, we chose no to do so.
Thank you and have a nice weekend.
September 9th - White Whale Books:
Hi Chai,
We did choose to engage, and you are more than welcome to publish my response, which I stand by. We absolutely carry Jewish AND Israeli authors, and I am not here to debate our stock and which specific authors and titles you or others feel should be included on our limited shelves. There are many current New York Times bestselling authors and titles that we also do not carry, and anyone is welcome to special order a book from us at any time. Given that you have not been to our space, this debate feels particularly disingenuous.
Respectfully,
Jill
Meanwhile, we stand by letting everyone choose where to shop based on their own level of comfort, so now you know. We found no point in following-up because we felt our time and energy were better spent elsewhere since it didn't seem like the door was open to a meaningful dialogue here.
***
Meanwhile, last week, Politics and Prose, a store on our safe spaces list, hosted Dana Bash for a talk about her new book, which, in our minds, further shows that it's a safe space. Of course, that also means they suffer the ire of those who will shut down anything and anyone who might think Israel has a right to exist, so of course her event was crashed by protestors. This is why we need these spaces. Even in them, it's still hard to be fully ourselves without becoming a target, so imagine what it's like in stores that don't even try.
Read about the incident here.
More good news soon, hopefully.