The Park Slope Food Coop’s venture into the treacherous waters of Middle East politics ended when its members voted overwhelmingly Tuesday not to go forward with a referendum to boycott Israeli products.
More than 1,600 members of the organic-food outpost packed the Brooklyn Technical High School auditorum for the most debated issue since the coop outlawed plastic grocery bags.
The final tally was 1,005 votes against holding a referendum of all members of the Brownstone Brooklyn grocery store, and 653 in favor.
The proposal, suggested by a small but vocal group, was defeated after 46 people voiced their opinion on whether banning Israeli olive paste and hummus could make an international impact.
The meeting started around 7:45 p.m. — 45 minutes late to accommodate the massive crowd — and ended with votes counted before 10.
Israeli-American Yoav Gaal was pleased with the outcome, saying advocates of referendum had a “distorted” view of his nation.
“Israel is on the right side of this argument,” Gaal said.
Other members pleaded for a yes vote, condemning Israel’s treatment of its Palestinian neighbors.
“Israel is a massive military power, funded with billions of our tax dollars . . . colonizing Palestinian land,” one member said during a debate.
Another scoffed at claims that the proposal was anti-Semitic.
“Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic,” a speaker declared.
As they entered the meeting, members were handed a ballot asking them to vote on whether to “participate in an international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to support Palestinian human rights.”
One longtime member said the boycott would have gone against the communal principles of the coop.
“We are an example on how to shop for food in peace,” the member said. “Why would we want to ruin that?”
Had it passed, the measure would have been largely symbolic because the coop carries only a handful of Israeli products.
stepping up to everyone like yankee did is the real kiddush hashem and the way you should act when have an opinion on something
Martin L King said that anti Israel, anti Zionism, it is really anti semitism. Guess the slopers likes to dress up their bigotry.
it’s been going on for a while
for their persecution of women?
im wondering if they did the vote so quickly because they were not happy about the publicity? What do people think about that possibility? Truthfully, it was important to deal with this and get it straight…..several of the speakers said the truth, that whatever side one is on, a co op is not a forum to sell organic brown rice and use it for a boycott. Very inappropriate. In many ways inappropriate. Alot of those people do not have proper boundaries. Seems like they need to belong to a cause (miss the ’60’s maybe?) so this does it for them.… Read more »
thank you Levi Capland for all your hard work and voicing your opinion. Now I can truly enjoy my Chalah on Shabbos with some dips
I hope Yankee Teitlebaum sees this because there are many of of thanking him for what he did. Yashar Koach
#1 you are really missing a big chunk of your thought process.
The fact is that it DID come up and it had to be dealt with.
Publicity for business? You’re incorrect, because the
co-op is for its members, not for business. The profits go into making the co op run, not for any owner. The owners are the co op members.
he puts his actions where his mouth is
The fact that it came up at all is ridiculous. Did they really think that their petty, evil-minded attempts to raise consciousness about how worthy terrorists are would really have any affect at all on Israel’s economy? The only thing it did achieve was publicity for their business- and questionable publicity at that.