Posted on 03/25/2012 10:47:27 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Seeking an end to the debate over BDS, grocerys board sets a vote for March 27.
Like many of those she knows at the Park Slope Food Co-op, Barbara Mazor has never been an overly political person.
Ive supported things in the past, she says, adding that she and her husband send money every year to Stand With Us, the pro-Israel advocacy group, and attend the annual Salute to Israel Parade, but Ive never spearheaded or led anything before.
That changed for Mazor last spring as a three-year debate over a proposed boycott of Israeli products at the co-op heated up once again, prompting the 55-year-old Midwood resident to form More Hummus, Please.
The groups creation means that the membership-only co-op is now divided into two factions Park Slope Food Co-op Members for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and Mazors anti-BDS group, each with its own blog and each with an e-mail list numbering in the hundreds.
The battle could come to an end or its continuation for many years could be guaranteed at the co-ops next general meeting, Tuesday, March 27. Acting to cap the debate, the co-ops board of directors decided to schedule a vote that evening among the institutions members on whether to hold a referendum on boycotting Israeli goods.
In a sign of the turmoil caused by the debate, more than 1,000 of the co-ops 16,000 members are expected to attend the monthly meeting far more than the 300 or so who normally attend general meetings. As a result, the co-ops managers have shifted the venue from Park Slopes Congregation Beth Elohim, where co-op meetings usually take place, to the more spacious Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene.
In the meantime, the issue has drawn attention not only from local political and religious leaders, but from national figures on both sides of the political spectrum and from The Daily Show. Among those figures are Glenn Beck, who has called the potential boycott anti-Semitic; U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, a resident of Park Slope, who told one newspaper that the proposal was misguided and counterproductive; and Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor, who has threatened an effort that would close down the co-op should a boycott be adopted. The Daily Show, meanwhile, has scheduled a segment on the controversy for its March 26 episode.
The controversy has also struck some observers as so absurd that its generated humor of the sort recently found in a New York Observer article, which noted that Israel and the 40-year-old co-op have a lot in common. Both were founded in part by Jewish socialists, the article said. Both are governed by raucous democracy with laws and rituals to rival the Talmud. Both have a soft spot for hummus and couscous. And now both are plagued by the Palestinian question.
Adding to the sense of absurdity, in the eyes of some, is that the co-op currently carries only six items produced in Israel, including an olive pesto manufactured by PeaceWorks, a venture aimed at uniting Jews and Arabs as business partners.
But more seriously, the BDS campaign has also anguished those, like Barbara Mazor, who joined the co-op 23 years ago to purchase items she couldnt buy elsewhere and suddenly finds herself confronted with what she calls political slogans.
Discussing why her group opposes even a referendum on a boycott, Mazor, an Orthodox Jew and vegetarian, said such a move would pave the way for months of additional propaganda against Israel, wasting the co-ops time and money. By approving the referendum, she added, the general meeting would also be sending a message that the political position of some people in the co-op should be imposed on other members of the co-op.
In Mazors view, a co-op is based on people working together and not a place for politics, especially proposals as divisive as this one.
Mazors anguish is shared by others in the community, including a group of rabbis in Brownstone Brooklyn, the area that encompasses Park Slope and nearby neighborhoods. Led by Rabbi Andy Bachman of Congregation Beth Elohim, the rabbis contacted their Christian counterparts at local churches to produce an interfaith statement opposing the boycott.
Signed by 11 members of the clergy, including six rabbis, the statement says the clerics are fully cognizant of the deprivations endured by the Palestinian people, but believe that the best path for a resolution lies in face-to-face negotiations between the parties. The BDS movement, it adds, looks for simple solutions to complex challenges and stands in the way of meaningful dialogue and engagement.
Rabbi Bachman, a member of the co-op, said he and other rabbis got involved in the issue after More Hummus, Please contacted him. But he added that hes spoken about the BDS movement many times from the pulpit and in his blog, telling his congregants that he views the effort as immoral.
I cant think of another example in the contemporary world where theres a movement afoot to dissolve a state, the rabbi told The Jewish Week. Theres a kind of insidious aspect to the BDS campaign, he said, adding that they dont believe Israel should exist as a democratic, Jewish state, but couch that view in language aimed at fogging the issue.
Mazors group has also received assistance from the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said Hindy Poupko, the agencys director of Israel and international affairs.
On the other side of the debate is the co-ops BDS faction, which took shape after one of the co-ops members, an artist and filmmaker known as Hima B., rose at a general meeting in 2009 to suggest a boycott of Israeli goods. A flurry of newspaper articles reported her comments, followed by angry letters in the co-ops biweekly newsletter, Linewaiters Gazette, but the issue died down until last summer. Members of the BDS faction reflect the co-ops diversity and include a good number of Jews, one of whom is Ora Wise, an Israel-born resident of Crown Heights and educational director of Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives, an independent congregation in Brooklyn.
Explaining that she spoke for herself and not the congregation, whose members include BDS supporters, BDS opponents and everyone in between, Wise told The Jewish Week that Israeli society depends on the exploitation and oppression of Palestinians. The co-op should boycott Israeli goods as long as that situation continues, she said. Wise dismissed suggestions that politics has no place at a food co-op, saying that food, and how its produced and how we get it, are inherently political. Here in Park Slope, as long as Palestinians are not allowed to farm their own land or thrive as a people, if we dont support the boycott, then were being hypocritical. Pressed on whether she supports or opposes Israels existence as a Jewish state, Weiss objected to the question at first, but finally said that the struggle for Palestinian rights wouldnt end until Palestinians have access to their entire homeland, including Israel proper. The occupation goes much deeper than just the West Bank, she added, and is part of Israels colonization of the area.
Comments like Weiss sound familiar to Jon Haber, a resident of the Boston area who follows the BDS movement for DivestThis, a blog he created in 2009.
An anti-BDS activist, Haber said the Park Slope battle fits a recent pattern for the BDS movement, which has targeted food co-ops in recent years after proving unsuccessful elsewhere. Co-ops have loose governing structures and are built around progressive communities, making them a soft target for BDS supporters, Haber said.
The only place where a BDS campaign has succeeded is in Olympia, Wash., where the co-ops board of directors implemented a boycott suddenly, stunning both staff and members. Once co-ops saw what happened in Olympia, Haber said, theyve been rejecting boycotts ever since.
That seems to be the case in Park Slope, where Joe Holtz, the co-ops general manager and one of its founders, has appealed to members to reject the BDS referendum. Writing in the current issue of the Linewaiters Gazette, Holtz said he and others launched the co-op because we believed in the beauty and power of people working together for the collective good. Joining BDS, on the other hand, would divide members and can only harm the co-ops future.
I belonged to the Olympia Washington coop mentioned in this article.
Why does it really matter where something one likes to eat, is from?
I’ll go out & buy some Sabra Hummus today.
Sick of those sickos who ally themselves with the worthless murdering muzzies! Sick of them!
):^(
It matters if you’re anti-Semitic
What is the reasoning behind anti-Semitism?
I wouldn’t know, I’m not anti-Semitic
Maybe an anti-Semite will tell us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.