Members of Park Slope Food Coop voted Tuesday to boycott Israeli and settlement products, ending a months-long campaign that fractured what was once considered a beacon of progressive unity in Brooklyn. Nearly 7,000 of the co-op's 17,000 members participated in the three-hour virtual meeting, with 67 percent backing the boycott.
The decision targets roughly a dozen products including tahini, peppers, and persimmons. It marks the culmination of what a local rabbi opposing the measure called a "proxy war" within the 50-year-old institution, one that has tested its ability to maintain civility while wrestling with the Gaza conflict.
Park Slope Food Coop Members in Solidarity with Palestine, the group behind the push, framed the boycott as consistent with decades of co-op activism. Alyce Barr, a member for nearly five decades and one of the proposal's sponsors, pointed to the co-op's history of more than 20 past boycotts targeting apartheid South Africa, Chile under Augusto Pinochet, and companies over labor and environmental violations.
"We want to build on this tradition by boycotting Israeli products until Israel complies with international law," Barr said. The campaign drew endorsement from more than two dozen advocacy groups, including several Jewish organizations.
The debate spilled into local politics. Congressional candidates Dan Goldman and Brad Lander, both Democrats vying for the same seat with Israel playing a central role in their primary, publicly opposed the vote. Meanwhile, Palestinian advocate and Brooklyn resident Mahmoud Khalil defended the boycott as a minimal response to what he characterized as Israel's treatment of civilians.
The path to Tuesday's vote was marked by confrontation. Co-op management condemned what it called antisemitic and anti-Arab remarks aired during a general assembly, including statements equating current policies with Nazi ideology and comments invoking "Arab supremacy." Members reported being verbally assaulted, having their materials dumped in the street, and tables overturned during the campaign.
Co-op leadership also documented threatening letters, suspicious substances in the mail, aggressive phone calls and emails, and hostile social media activity directed at staff and members. General Manager Joe Szladek said the co-op increased security in response but stressed the measures were not targeting any particular viewpoint.
The vote also passed a second ballot initiative eliminating a 75 percent supermajority requirement for future boycotts to succeed, lowering the bar considerably for similar actions down the road.
Author James Rodriguez: "The Park Slope vote reveals how thoroughly Gaza has redrawn the battle lines inside American institutions, even places once immune to larger culture wars."
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