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Oct. 21, 2011
Nontraditional voices
Mantua calls itself a values-based publisher.
OLGA LIVSHIN
Standing up for your convictions can be difficult at the best of times. Some face ridicule; others face danger. Howard Rotberg, the president of local publishing company Mantua Books, understands the potential consequences well. But despite any opposition he has encountered, he continues to be vocal about what he sees are the problems in Western society, and about antisemitism and anti-Israel tendencies.
Although Rotberg’s passion for social justice has led him to become a book publisher, he began his professional life as a lawyer. Years went by, his practice was successful, but his dissatisfaction with the state of the world grew. “I looked at the changes in the world around me and I wanted to do some good, make the world a better place,” Rotberg said in an interview with the Independent. “Fifteen years ago, I sold my law practice and went into real estate development. My company develops affordable hosing in heritage buildings for low-income people in Ontario.”
Still, Rotberg felt he could do more; he wanted his ideas to be heard. In 2003, he started Mantua Books to give voice to those who, he said, are striving to improve the world. Among the issues he and his writers debate and explore are multiculturalism, tyranny, Zionism and tolerance.
Mantua’s website homepage clearly expresses the publishing house’s goals: “Sometimes viewed as a conservative publisher, we prefer to identify our company as one that is values based. Our values are based on biblical values of justice, both as to individual civil rights and dignity, and as to social justice. We are not a religious publisher as such, but we identify with the Judeo-Christian values of responsibility for individual actions, justice, and the need to improve the world. We oppose cultural and moral relativism, and the notion of escaping personal responsibility by blaming others.” Rotberg and the group of like-minded writers he publishes consider themselves whistle-blowers, urging the rest of us to listen and to pay attention.
A son of a Holocaust survivor, Rotberg was raised with the belief that intolerance leads to evil. His father, who moved to Canada after the war, embraced the tolerant, multicultural Canadian society. But Rotberg has come to the conclusion that it was, in fact, the tolerance of Nazism exhibited by Western countries that was as much to blame for the Holocaust as was the intolerance of the Nazis themselves. And, Rotberg is worried about the recent shifts in our society, which, he posited, increasingly welcomes the intolerant into our midst.
On this issue, Rotberg stands firmly with Western philosopher Karl Popper, who wrote: “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant … then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them…. We should, therefore, claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”
The above quote is one of the cornerstones TOLERism: The Ideology Revealed, Rotberg’s 2009 book. “Our society emphasizes tolerance,” he explained, “but Torah talks about justice, not tolerance.” For him, a religious man, as well as a scholar of history and cultures, Torah and its notions are paramount.
His first book, The Second Catastrophe, was a novel about a Canadian professor whose daughter is injured by a terrorist attack in Israel, and dealt directly with the idea of “tolerism.” “When the Second Intifada started, it shocked me,” he recalled. “And the worse shock was that so many people blamed Israel.” The novel was in no uncertain terms pro-Israel, and no conventional publisher would touch it.
“I discovered that no publisher wanted to deal with Israeli topics, unless the work was anti-Israel,” he said. Unwilling to compromise the central issues of the novel and fed up with what he calls “the liberal establishment,” he formed Mantua Books and published the novel himself. But that was just the beginning of his problems.
“I soon ran into Islamist attempts to censor me and my novel,” he said. “During a lecture I attempted to give in a bookstore, they wouldn’t allow me to talk, and the bookstores banned my book because of that disturbance, instead of ejecting the hooligans…. I, the child and grandchild of Jews escaping antisemitism in Europe, was told that I must tolerate young Islamists shouting me down at a lecture, calling me a ‘f***ing Jew.’ I was told that I was a racist if I reflected any type of attitude that our Canadian political culture was better than Islamist political culture.”
Rotberg strongly disagrees and he isn’t alone. “I talked to many other writers, David Solway among them,” he explained. “Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist. As soon as his opinions changed after 9/11 [and] became much more pro-Israel, he had troubles getting his books into print.”
Rotberg ended up dedicating Mantua Books to publishing such writers, making it a tribune for the political message. “Not all cultures are equal,” he said, explaining his rejection of the concept of cultural relativism. “I studied the history of cultures. Culture is a sum total of how people think and behave in society. Arts and literature are parts of it, as well as food, clothes and ideology. But there are some troublesome ideologies and cultural attitudes, where, for example, fanatical men are allowed to abuse their women and children. We can and should criticize such cultures. We have to stand up against them because, if we don’t, it will be the death of our culture. Mantua Books is on the forefront. We’re trying to help stave off the destruction of Western civilization.”
His writers support his platform. “Seventy-five percent of our writers have PhDs,” he said. “They know what they’re talking about. And our readership is rising. People are starting to realize there is a cultural war happening and they want to read about it and judge for themselves.”
Most recently, this summer, Mantua published Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism by Salim Mansur, a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. The book received favorable reviews both in the Toronto Sun and the Ottawa Citizen. Other Mantua authors include Jamie Glazov, Paul Merkley, Pamela Peled, Jacob Sivak and Solway.
Mantua’s booklist is one that is sure to elicit as many critics as champions, but this is likely irrelevant to Rotberg. His personal conviction is unquestionable: “I know I have to be careful,” he said. “It’s much safer not to take the risks, but if I don’t, if we all give in, what kind of life my grandchildren would have.”
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
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