A contentious proposal to boycott Israeli products at the Park Slope Food Coop is roiling a liberal Brooklyn community and exposing a deepening divide across NYC, even spilling into the NY-10th District congressional primary between Democrats Rep. Dan Goldman and challenger Brad Lander.
Members of the co-op are set to vote Tuesday on a heavily-debated proposal to ban all made-in-Israel items, with members staking out sides on both sides of the measure.
Supporters say the ban would amount to a small but potent gesture of opposition to Israel’s policies in the Gaza and Iran wars and discrimination against the Palestinians. They compare the anti-Israel push to similar economic actions against apartheid South Africa and segregation in the Deep South, even though the only Israeli products the co-op stocks are a little-known brand of Israeli hummus, corn snacks and Ecolove hair products with Green Vegetable and Purple Fruit options.
“It’s about the fact that we’re complicit in what’s happening over there and it needs to stop immediately,” said John Caramichael, 27. “This is what we can do.”
Opponents counter that the proposed boycott is a divisive waste of time. Some also consider it anti-semitic to blanketly boycott Israeli products.
“It is just an excuse to show your power,” said Andre Schklowsky, 84, who joined the co-op in 1974. “It’s not gonna affect much of what I actually buy. It is just an excuse to divide people.”
Bruno Grandsard of Park Slope called the co-op a successful “jewel” that brings an amazing array of products to the community. A 25-year veteran member, he says anti-Israel politics has nothing to do with its mission.
“It’s terrible for the co-op. (It) creates division,” he said of the boycott push. “Most people don’t care. It’s a supermarket.”
Outside the co-op Friday, a couple confronted a pro-boycott organizer to ask why getting rid of Israeli vegetables would change the trajectory of Middle East conflicts.
“So you want to get rid of chili peppers?” the man asked.
The fight picked up momentum last week when Rabbi Rachel Timoner, a prominent progressive Jewish leader and ally of Mayor Mamdani, delivered a sermon denouncing the boycott push at the popular Congregation Beth Elohim temple on Eighth Ave. a couple of blocks from the store.
The fight has since become an issue in the contentious Democratic primary in the NY-10 district in which the store is located. The district has one of the highest concentration of Jewish voters in the nation, with Goldman and Lander staking out divergent views on the Israel question.
Goldman has issued a call for defeat of the boycott measure that he says is part of an anti-semitic campaign and push to wipe Israel off the map. The so-called BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement has come under fire from a broad array of Jewish groups and politcians.
“Joining a movement that was founded on the principle of the elimination of Israel will have no impact on the Israeli government or the Israeli economy,” Goldman said in a statement. “Instead, it only succeeds at shifting the responsibility for the Israeli government’s actions to American Jews, which is quintessential anti-semitism.”
Lander, who like Goldman is Jewish, counters by saying he also would vote against the boycott push but defends proponents against charges of anti-Jewish bias.
“Principled people can disagree here,” Lander said in a statement. “Boycotts, divestments, and sanctions are legitimate tools of advocacy campaigns.”
The co-op war in the heart of brownstone Brooklyn comes against a backdrop of deepening antipathy between supporters of Israel and Palestine across New York. Though 6,000 miles away, the conflict continues to feature heavily in NYC politics; it became a divisive and contentious issue during last year’s mayoral campaign.
Political analysts say the political fallout from the food co-op debate reflects a broader and widening schism over Israel among Democratic voters, especially progressive Jewish Democrats.
That dynamic is on display in the 10th, where recent polls suggest Lander has taken a strong lead in his fight to unseat Goldman, a two-term incumbent, in the June 23 primary.
The dispute could offer Goldman a chance to gain a foothold in the more-populous Brooklyn portion of the district that also includes his home in lower Manhattan.
It could also give Goldman a chance to pry some of of the district’s Jewish voters away from Lander, although some progressive Jews support the movement to boycott Israeli products especially after the war in Gaza and Israel’s alliance with the U.S. in the war against Iran.
Goldman says he’s a progressive Zionist who frequently disagrees with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Critics point to his support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Lander, a former comptroller and mayoral candidate, was once a more vocal supporter of Israel and a fierce opponent of the boycott Israel movement, including during a previous contentious fight over Israel at the co-op in 2012.
But Lander, who lives a stone’s throw away from the food co-op on Union Street, has moved to the left in recent years, especially since he forged a feel-good bromance alliance with Mayor Mamdani, a fervent longtime critic of Netanyahu who calls the Gaza war an act of genocide against the Palestinian people.
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Chris Sosa, a Democratic strategist, warned that Goldman could be making a political misstep by reminding NY-10 voters that he is a stauncher supporter of Israel than Lander.
The incumbent may gain some limited support among older more moderate Jewish voters with that stance, but lose much more support among the majority of Democratic voters in a very progressive district who do not agree with Israel’s actions in the age of Trump, Sosa said.
“By highlighting this issue, Goldman isolates him from all the other voters who don’t agree with him on Israel,” Sosa said. “It doesn’t make any political sense.” ]
