Park Slope Food Co-op hires security after controversial boycott vote
Members of the Park Slope Food Co-op voted Tuesday night to boycott products imported from Israel, and members are now divided.
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The debate over the war in Gaza is spilling into the aisles of a community-run grocery store in Park Slope after members of the Park Slope Food Co-op voted Tuesday night to boycott products from Israel.
About 67% of members supported the measure, which supporters say is meant to take a moral stand against the war in Gaza.
“We’re all member owners,” member Keyian Dafi said. “This is our co-op, and we don’t want to purchase goods from a regime that’s, facilitating a genocide in Gaza.”
But not everyone agrees with the decision.
“Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t waking up in a cold sweat because the food co-op is now boycotting these seven items,” member Ramon Maislen said. “Right but you’re making thousands of members feel unwelcome here.”
Some members say the debate itself has created tension inside the co-op.
“Ultimately, I feel like it’s unfortunate,” another member said. “Because I feel like it creates a kind of a divisive relationship between all members at the end of the day, and I don’t think it really does much one way or the other, except in creating negative energy.”
Others questioned whether the boycott could hurt small business owners more than larger political systems.
“I know, like, one of the tahinis that we carry is made by an Iranian woman who lives in Israel,” another member said. “And, her products are already being boycotted in Israel and then for us to boycott them at the co-op and like, take everything off the shelves, it’s just kind of like I wonder how how many individuals were hurting and and how much this is going to help anything.”
Members told News 12 the co-op only carries seven products imported from Israel, but many say the debate has become about much more than what is on the shelves.
The co-op also hired additional security, which News 12 observed outside the store Wednesday.
A letter sent to members said the co-op has received threatening letters, suspicious substances through the mail and aggressive phone calls and emails since the vote was proposed. The letter said police have also been involved.
“It’s concerning that it’s necessary,” Dafi said.
“If we can’t keep people safe in an organic food co-op, what the hell are we doing with ourselves?” Maislen said.
The Park Slope Food Co-op has a long history of political activism, including past boycotts targeting apartheid in South Africa.
“I just worked a shift and just stocked something on the shelves that had to be pulled off now because of the ban,” another anonymous member said. “And I was like, don’t we have a grace period? Can’t we, like, sell what we already what the co-op already bought? So it’s also hurting the co-op.”
News 12 reached out to the Park Slope Food Co-op for an interview, but the co-op declined to comment.
