Storied New York food co-op votes to boycott Israeli products after contentious campaign | New York

Members of a long-established food cooperative in Brooklyn voted to boycott nearly a dozen products from Israel and Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine; It marked the culmination of years of contentious debate over a conflict half a world away that threatened to tear apart a landmark institution for liberal New Yorkers.

The Park Slope Food Cooperative vote, held Tuesday night during a three-hour virtual meeting attended by nearly 7,000 of the co-op’s 17,000 members, followed a months-long dueling campaign in which a local rabbi opposed the boycott. “proxy war”. The boycott is expected to affect some tahini, pepper and date brands, as well as other products. Sixty-seven percent of respondents voted in favor of the boycott.

What seemed like a minor squabble beyond the largely privileged community the cooperative serves has become yet another microcosm of the deep rifts over Israel that the war in Gaza has exacerbated.

The pro-boycott group, led by Park Slope Food Cooperative Members in Solidarity with Palestine and supported by more than two dozen advocacy groups, including several Jews, argued that the boycott was in keeping with the cooperative’s long history of socially conscious shopping and cited past boycotts of products from apartheid South Africa and Chile under the Augusto Pinochet regime, as well as various companies’ anti-labor or environmental practices.

“Our cooperative has a long and proud tradition of more than 20 boycotts” in question Alyce Barr has been a member for nearly fifty years and is one of the sponsors of the boycott proposal. “We want to continue this tradition by boycotting Israeli products until Israel complies with international law.”

The controversy attracted attention well beyond the cooperative, which was founded in 1973 and has been the subject of much controversy. satirical depictions due to strict membership requirements and perceived personal importance. Dan Goldman and Brad Lander, two Democrats, are locked in a race for congressional priorities in which Israel plays a central role. they both got heavier against voting (although Lander makes it clear that he is not telling people how to vote). Others, like Palestinian lawyer and Brooklyn resident Mahmoud Khalil defended boycott Acting as a minimal response to Israel’s “murder of civilians and human rights violations on a daily basis.”

Tensions over two proposed ballot initiatives (one favoring a boycott of Israeli products, the other eliminating the 75% majority requirement for passage of the boycott) have been raging for weeks (the second initiative was also passed by a large majority). At times, these tensions escalated into conflicts, which the cooperative management condemned as contrary to the spirit of the organization.

Pro-boycott advocates described being verbally abused, including “homophobic and misogynistic slurs” by some anti-boycott members and passersby, having their tables turned upside down, and having supplies thrown onto the street by a cooperative member.

In an email to members shared with the Guardian, the co-operative’s management condemned antisemitic and anti-Arab comments made at last month’s general assembly. In a statement quoted in the email, one member declared: “Between the mistakes we made with the Nazis and the mistakes we’ve made with other hateful, racist groups, we cannot continue to make the same mistakes. Jewish supremacy is a problem in this country.” In another comment, it was reported that the expression “Arab supremacy” was used in connection with the events of October 7, 2023 and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“The Co-op has always been a place for open debate, including difficult and strong views that lie among deeply divided views, but that debate must remain based on civil discourse,” wrote Joe Szladek, the co-op’s chief executive.

Szladek said in his email that the cooperative’s leadership had increased security measures, citing a series of incidents including “threatening letters, suspicious items sent through the mail, aggressive phone calls and emails, repeated phone interruptions, hostile social media, and online activity directed at staff and members.” “These actions are not being taken in response to any particular viewpoint or group of members.”