Park Slope Food Co-Op Squashes Future Israel Boycotts

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — The storied flamewar between Brownstone Brooklyn’s local Israel supporters and Israel boycotters was reignited on the downlow last week at a general meeting for the Park Slope Food Co-Op.

At their Jan. 26 meeting, members of the co-op — one of America’s oldest and largest, and the epicenter of the local Israel-Palestine debate — voted 294-192 to require 75 percent member support for any future boycott of goods.

(In other words, a super majority, as opposed to a previous simple majority of over 50 percent.)

Although the vote didn’t explicitly target the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, neighborhood BDSers are calling it a clear assault on their cause.

“We have most definitely entered a dark era of McCarthyism at the Food Coop and beyond,” the Park Slope Food Coop BDS group posted to its Facebook page, ”and the people on the hit list are pro-BDS supporters.”

Jesse Rosenfeld, the Park Sloper who proposed the new threshold, wrote in the official co-op newsletter that he hoped it would end “division and hostility” in the community and ”[move] us closer to speaking with one voice to the world.”

In the past, most of the co-op’s non-Israel-related boycotts, including ones against Domino Sugar and Coca-Cola, have been approved almost unanimously.

Israel-related boycott talks, though, have been more of a tug-of-war.

Naomi Brussel, a member of the co-op’s BDS group, asked in the same newsletter: ”Why [are we] voting on this question before we vote about boycotting Sodastream?”

(Sodastream being a home carbonation kit manufactured in Israel, formerly on Palestinian land and currently on land historically belonging to Bedouin tribes.)

Brussel said she found it unfair that a proposal on boycotting Sodastream had been delayed for eight months, while Rosenfeld’s proposal had sailed through to a vote.

“How can the Coop, a progressive institution, support food justice for Palestinians in a system that oppresses them?” she wrote.

Ann Herpel, a general coordinator at the co-op, told Patch that in addition to the Sodastream kits, the co-op currently carries a handful of other Israel-made products.

“Because it’s winter, there might be a pepper or two in the produce aisle that comes from Israel,” she said. “We normally also have some sort of kosher marshmallow that satisfies vegan folks... but it’s not exactly a high seller. And I think we have a gluten-free cracker.”

Herpel made sure to note that the co-op also carries a couple of olive oils from Palestine.