A Jewish mama for Free Palestine
Stacy Friedman created a book she needed that hadn’t previously existed.
October 21st, 2026
Elly Stern illustration, from Never Again, for Anyone.
“It broke my heart that I could not find a book that conveyed that standing with others in their struggle for justice is part of being Jewish.”
In her debut book, Never Again, for Anyone (Arsenal Pulp $22.95), self-described “Jewish mama, educator and organizer” Stacy Friedman begins by telling of a kindergarten boy named Lev who is celebrating Shabbat with his mother. They make challah (a braided bread traditionally eaten on the Jewish Sabbath) and light a candle for Lev’s late Bubbie (grandmother) who was a Holocaust child survivor.
When Lev asks his mother about why Bubbie looks sad in pictures, his mother carefully measures her words so as not to traumatize her young son. Because of “many people with power who didn’t like Jewish people,” Lev’s mother says, “[Bubbie] had to pretend she wasn’t Jewish … [and] she moved into a stranger’s house without her parents, and she missed them a lot.”
While many Holocaust survivors later said, “Never again,” Bubbie instead said, “We can’t ever let anyone be treated like that again.” Bubbie often took her daughter, Lev’s mother, to march and speak out for people who weren’t treated fairly. One of Bubbie’s favourite sayings came from an ancient Jewish sage, Hillel the Elder: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.”
Lev has a Palestinian friend, Ameera and he decides to light a candle for her, too. It inspires Lev’s mother to take Lev to march with people in support of Palestine. Their sign reads, “Never again, for anyone.”
The story ends with Lev and his mother, after the march, sharing a meal with Ameera and her mother.
In a “letter from the author,” Stacy Friedman says: “I was raised in a Jewish community, but I am not raising my child in the same one I grew up in. I’ve had to find my own way to connect with my Jewish heritage and find a Judaism that makes sense to me, that I can feel proud of … that will help my child have roots so he can grow strong and loving (not strong and brutal). At the root of this Judaism is the fundamental teaching That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.”
Like the mother in her story, Friedman has taken her preschooler with her to protests. “We joined Parents for Palestine,” she says. “He played with Gazan children who are growing strong in a land far from home while they watch their families barely survive (and sometimes not survive at all) on a screen.”
Friedman knows of many “beautiful Jewish children’s books about holidays and families,” she says, but she could not find any “that modelled for my child what it means to be a good person at this moment in time when children his age are starving, living in tents, unable to attend school, orphaned, missing limbs, losing their lives.” She adds: “It broke my heart that I could not find a book that conveyed that standing with others in their struggle for justice is part of being Jewish.”
Friedman began connecting with more Jewish families who supported the Palestinian cause. “I found that they, too, were eager for a book to offer their own children loving words and ways of being in this frightening world. The book we needed didn’t exist, so I decided to write it.”
Vancouver-based Elly Stern provided the gentle, warmly coloured illustrations. Her publisher’s blurb reads that Stern is an “… artist, animator and community organizer who uses visual storytelling to inspire change.” Stern is also a third-generation Holocaust survivor and “anti-Zionist Jew from Israel-Palestine” who is “committed to intertwining art with justice advocacy.” Stern created several protest march signs that line the book’s inner covers, including “Self-Loving Jews for Palestine,” “All Children Need Protection/ Ceasefire Now,” “This Jewish Parent says Teach My Kids About Palestine” and “Stand Up Against Anti-Palestinian Racism.”
At the back of Friedman’s book is a discussion guide to cultivate understanding and empathy. 9781834050522
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