The Minister and Me

The Communists in the Former Soviet Union hated religion. But they especially hated Judaism. It was illegal to teach Hebrew and Judaism. It was illegal to publicly practice Judaism. Jews experienced horrible discrimination and oppression.

In the late 1960's, here in the United States and Israel, Jews began to work to improve the condition of Jews in the Soviet Union. We worked to allow them to emigrate to Israel and to end the persecution. In the 1970's and 80's, when I was a teen and in my 20's, I spent many a Sunday at demonstrations and activities on behalf of Soviet Jews. With the support of Senators Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Charles Vanick, we successfully lobbied Congress to link Human Rights with trade with the USSR and other nations with controlled economies.

We were inspired by the young men and women who risked their freedom and livelihood by secretly teaching Hebrew and applying for visas to move to Israel. Many went to prison. One of them was Yuli Edelstein.

Yuli Edelstein was allowed to emigrate to Israel in 1987. He entered public service and today serves in Israel's Cabinet as the Minister of Information and Diaspora Affairs. On December 4, 2011, he visited the Park Slope Food Coop as part of the promotion of Buy Israel Week and to offer his support and encouragement to our anti-BDS efforts at the Coop.

This is the Minister and that is me with my back to the camera. I am reciting to him from the prayer for the State of Israel that we say in synagogues on Saturday - "Our Heavenly Father should send his Light and Truth to the leaders, ministers and advisers of Israels."

Just how effective has nearly 3 years of BDS efforts at the Coop been?  Well, if SodaStream sales are any indication, the BDS message is being ignored.   We are currently selling about 12 carbonators a week.  In addition, we are selling over 100 replacement CO2 canisters.  Then there are the extra bottles, caps and syrups.  I conservatively estimate current gross sales of SodaStream products be over $2,600 / week.  The current rate of canisters sales means a reduction of over 350,000 plastic 1 liter soda bottles from entering the waste stream.

What else are Coop members ignoring?  They seem to have mostly ignored the young man wearing the PFLP t-shirt who was giving out flyers for the BDS education event on Sunday.

What Kind of Coop Do We Want To Be?

What kind of Coop do we want to be? Do we want to be a place where people of all different perspectives and outlooks can come together and find common ground in their interest in healthy fresh food and their willingness to be part our collective enterprise? Are we to be a community where we can assume that each person who joins it will act for the good of the community as a whole and will not inflict damage on that community and pain on its members, even for a cause she believes in strongly? Or are we to be a place where anyone can promote any political agenda, and exploit the good name of our Coop?

The members promoting a referendum on joining the BDS movement claim “avoiding discussion on an important issue does not build unity – it builds anxiety and mistrust.” So they have imposed a discussion of the Middle East conflict upon us. They want the Coop to be “welcoming to everyone who would express themselves on this issue.”

But the discussion they offer is not an honest one. This group conducted a program in the Coop on Dec 4. It was attended by about 20 people in addition to the organizers and presenters. I do not doubt the presenters sincerely believe themselves to be advocates of peace. Yet, they appeared singularly unknowledgeable regarding certain facts, and in some case transmitted information that was outright wrong. Not everything expressed at this program was consistent with the true pursuit of peace.

What kind of peace activist wears a t-shirt with the emblem of the terrorist organization responsible for the 1974 murders of 17 Puerto Ricans, 1 Canadian and 9 Israelis at Lod airport? What kind of peace activist suggests that suicide bombings directed against civilians is justified? What kind of peace activist stays silent when someone says that, and will not unequivocally say “murder of civilians is wrong in all cases”? Is this the “expressions on this issue” we want to welcome at the coop? Or does it “build anxiety and mistrust”?

If you are a Coop member, please join me and more than 200 others in telling these “peace activists” to drop their BDS campaign at the Coop. The Coop doesn’t want or need this discussion. Send an email to morehummus@gmail.com.

To Leaflet or Not to Leaflet

For those of you who follow this blog but are not members of the Park Slope Food Coop, I am pleased to report that we are now at 203 supporters.

Recently the pro-BDS group has been handing out flyers in front of the Coop. The flyers advocate holding a referendum on joining the BDS movement. The text is pretty much the same as on this page of the pro-BDS website.

Some in our group have suggested we respond with our own flyers.  Reasons to respond are:

1. Not everyone reads the Gazette, but everyone coming to the Coop gets a flyer.
2. If we don't respond, it appears there is no opposition.
3. Someone might be convinced by the flyer to support the referendum, even if she doesn't support BDS.

Reasons not to responds are:

1. Giving out flyers annoys people.
2. Flyers create waste; even in New York City, where paper is recycled.
3. It is not necessarily a good use of time and money.

I oppose BDS because it is wrong, because it is not a peace movement.  I also oppose the exploitation of the Food Coop for political purposes.  People joined it because it is a food store.  I feel that promoting BDS - or for that matter any cause that does not have a direct impact on the Coop's operation -  is a usurpation of the Coop's prime purpose.  I don't want to increase the pollution of our civic space.

What do you think?

Plain and Simple #4 - "A Welcoming Place"

Here is another gem from our pro-BDS people at the Park Slope Food Coop, as part of their reasons why we should join the boycott.

It [joining the BDS movement] will also make the PSFC a more welcoming place for all people who want justice realized in Palestine.

Setting aside what "justice in Palestine" might mean - that will have to be a separate post - I assume they are talking about themselves. Are they saying they don't feel welcome? So let's see:

1. They have had over two and half years of letters printed in the Linewaiters' Gazette.
2. They have had an entire General Meeting devoted to their topic.
3. They have had hosted several education events in the Coop.
4. They give out flyers in front of the Coop.
5. They have 2 items sitting on the Agenda Committee list.

Just how much more welcome do they need to feel?

And since when is holding a political position akin to race or ethnicity or religion or sex or orientation? Since when are holders of a political positions a protected group? By definition, holding a position means excluding those who hold the opposite position. So, we have to be more welcoming to one group by endorsing a position that will make the people who disagree with them feel less welcome.

These are peace activists? This is the meaning of co-existence?

If your head hasn't exploded yet, can someone please explain to me the logic of "If you won't take a position on an issue, then your inaction means you support the people I disagree with."?

Once again, plain and simple, they don't know what they are talking about.

Plain and Simple - Introduction

The Park Slope Food Coop members who want us to hold a referendum on joining the BDS movement have recently updated their website. (No, I am not linking. You can find it on you own.) The content is filled with internal contradictions, historical distortions and easily refuted accusations. There is so much material it is hard to choose where to start. Plain and simple, the Coop’s BDS supporters don’t know what they are talking about.

As I previously wrote, context is important. They ignore the history of continuous Arab racism, terrorism, rejectionism. You will not find a word admitting any Arab culpability or wrong-doing on their website. All their sources agree with their narrow perspective. I don’t believe they could substantiate the claims they make. Can they show what the factual basis of each claim? Can they anticipate counter-claims or alternative explanations and demonstrate why they’re not acceptable? Could they say what sort of facts, were they to exist, would disprove their claims? Could they show that the non-existence of such facts bolster their positions?

Probably not. But I can disprove them, and I will. Because I have an army of minds out there who have been doing it for 100 years to turn to. And I have the facts.

So, I am writing a series of posts, entitled “Plain and Simple,” refuting the claims of their website. Of course, it's going to take a little time. They have a lot of material. I invite any you to help in this project. And I invite the pro-BDS Coop members to respond and ask questions.

My Sodastream

On Thursday we bought a SodaStream machine at the Park Slope Food Coop. I am very pleased with it. It is easy to use, it looks nice and the soda is actually fizzy.

We had a Sypholux soda maker in the past, but I never liked it. In addition to having a name that sounds like a disease, it was heavy, hard to dry between uses, and it didn't make good soda.

I was skeptical about the Sodastream, but I decided to try it anyway. I am glad I did. It will pay for itself in less than 1 year. I won't have to carry home seltzer bottles anymore.

It is ironic. If it hadn't been targeted for boycott, I would never have known that this machine existed or was even sold at the coop. Sodastream is produced by an Israeli company. In the Food Coop it is found on the top shelf above the bottled juices, opposite the bulk items. I never look up there.

There were 3 Sodastream units on the shelf when I started my work slot this morning. When I left the store, 2 had already been purchased. It makes a great gift. Oh yeah, and when I googled SodaStream, I found out the stock is performing really well.

Specatacular BDS Fail in Sacramento

BDS was a big loser in Sacramento over the weekend.

Divest This! has all the details.

It is enough to say that in balloting last week at the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, two pro-BDS candidates for the Board of Directors were defeated AND a vote to join BDS was defeated 83% to 17%. Booya!

I am trying to find out why they held the vote, when originally the Policy Committee turned it down. I know the pro-BDS group had started a legal action against the co-op. Maybe they just wanted to get it all behind them.

Why Am I a Member of the Food Coop?

It's simple.  My coop membership is worth a few thousand dollars a year in savings.  If I weren't saving money, I wouldn't be a member.  And I find Working there the required 33 hours a year is pleasant for me.  If it became unpleasant, I would stop being a member.

In the September 8, 2011, Linewaiters' Gazette there is a letter from a member who complains(!) the management staff is doing "everything in their power to maintain their Co-Op as a food store and not as a social experiment or an activist force."

Well, it happens to be my Coop, too. And the management is doing exactly what it is supposed to do: keep the store well-running, so people can save money. Because I guarantee, when people stop saving money, they will stop being members.

We have lots of choices for places to buy groceries.  We choose which store based on our own cost/benefits analysis. The Park Slope Food Coop is a grocery store with an unusual, perhaps unique, business model, but it is still a grocery store first.

We have many choices for engaging in "social experiments" or being "an activist force." Don't coopt the Coop.

Civic Society

Our fellow coop members promoting BDS tell us not fear conflict and division in the coop.  Divest This!, who has been following BDS 3 years, points out

the vehicle through which BDS tries to operate is civic society. Why go through such trouble to get this school or that church to sign onto the boycott or divestment program, if not to try to speak in the name of every member of that organization? For only by making such claims can BDS campaigners give the impression that their desire to see Israel punished through economic sanction comes from a large and respected institution (rather than a small, unrepresentative minority).

The “By-Any-Means-Necessary” tactics used to recruit these organizations into the BDS fold demonstrates how little interest boycotters have in these civic institutions, beyond their usefulness.

Take the seemingly trivial example of food co-ops, many of which operate under relatively loose rules and by-laws. To most of us, such loose governance makes sense in the context of a community of trust (the definition of a civic institution). For in such a trust community, it is assumed that individuals will take the needs of the larger organization and its members into account before acting (and thus air-tight rules and regulations are not required for normal, ongoing activity). But for BDSers, such loose rules do not represent the trusting nature of our civic life, but rather weaknesses to exploit for their own narrow ends.

But at the end of the day, this civic life is what holds our society together, providing endless building blocks which add onto each other one food co-op, one 4H club, one small church, one tiny town, one school, one city, one institution at a time. And when you tear at the fabric that holds such institutions together in order to achieve your own selfish ends, the damage caused has repercussions

The emphasis is mine.  Our BDS group admits this is divisive, yet they pursue it.  The Park Slope Food Coop needs to protect itself.

Report from the "Discussion" at the General Meeting

For this to make any sense at all, I first have to describe how the Park Slope Food Coop is governed.  The Coop's monthly General Meeting (GM) has been the decision-making body of the Coop since the Coop began in 1973.  When the Coop was incorporated in 1977, it became legally required to have a Board of Directors. However, the Board's role doesn't overshadow or replace the member initiative, discussion and decision-making that is the purpose of the GM.

Decisions are made at the monthly GM.  All members may attend and vote.  Any member can submit an item to the Agenda Committee and it will eventually get calendared for the GM.  And so it proceeded for the group of members who requested a "Discussion about Conducting a Membership-wide referendum on the participation of the PSFC in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israeli apartheid policies."

A Park Slope Food Coop GM "discussion" consists of 3 parts.  First, the submitting party presents the agenda item.  Second, members may ask clarifying questions to the submitting party about the item.  Finally, there is a period for comment, where members are called up one at a time for 2-3 minutes to state their opinions on the measure at hand.  No vote is taken.

If you were hoping for logical presentations of well reasoned arguments and proofs by opposing sides,  you would be disappointed. 

The "discussion" was conducted as described above, with one exception. A statement by Rabbi Bachman opposing the boycott was read prior to opening the floor to comments.  Rabbi Bachman is the senior rabbi at the nearby synagogue where the Coop holds the GM.    In all, 25 members treated us to their sound bites.  14 spoke out in opposition to BDS, 9 were in favor, and 2 made neutral comments.  Time ran out, and we voted to adjourn.

I was surprised by the lack of substance in the BDS presentation.  They spent most of their time talking about how a referendum was more democratic than a General Meeting.  They did not identify the goals of the BDS movement.  They did not provide a single specific example of Israel's horrible behaviors, other than the vague terms "violations of human rights and international law" and "apartheid."  Could it be that they can't substantiate these claims? And why hide the nature of BDS?

Maybe you can find an answer in the video at the top left.

How BDS Hurts Food Coops - Pt. 1

This video has interviews with members of the Port Townsend Food Co-op and the Olympia Food Co-op.  In Port Townsend, the BDS attempt failed.  In Olympia, it succeeded by subverting the democratic process.  I will write more about Olympia soon, or you can read all the posts at Divest This!

In the meantime, you can listen to these long time co-op members and board member tell the story of how BDS tore their community apart.

Neutral Spaces

Our Coop is a food store. Our work requirement is the key element that allows the coop to provides our low prices.   There is a bonus; we get to work and interact, even form friendships, with diverse  groups of people, many of whom we would never meet otherwise.

Life provides many opportunities for interaction within our own particular communities, be they political, religious, ethnic, national, regional, etc. To build broader communities, we require neutral spaces where people with different politics, religion, sexual orientation, etc. can meet and interact with each other as people, without regard to the barriers that separate us in other settings. The coop is one of these neutral spaces.

When we interact in these neutral environments, we learn to recognize our common humanity, to dispel stereotypes about each other and to begin to respect those with whom we disagree or who are different from us.

Politicizing neutral institutions destroys this source of community and opportunity for interaction. If an organization like the Park Slope Food Coop were to adopt positions on divisive political issues, then it really would no longer be open to everyone. No one joins or continues to support an organization espousing political positions he or she abhors.

If the Coop considers adopting divisive political positions, its membership will fragment. This is what happens when previously open communal organizations take sides on political controversies on which their members strongly disagree.

Our Coop is worth protecting and preserving. Our members must resist attempts to use our Coop as a political weapon to be fought over and captured.



The above was adopted from a March 2010 essay by Alan Brownstein, professor of constitutional law at the UC Davis School of Law. The essay was written in response to the BDS effort at the Davis Food Cooperative. It was originally published in the Davis Enterprise, and re-posted on the Davis Interfaith Coalition for Peace and Justice in the Middle East web site. You can read the original here.

The Board of Directors of the Davis Food Cooperative ultimately rejected a member initiative to vote on joining BDS. It was determined the initiative did not have a "lawful and proper purpose" according to their by-laws.

Our First Letter to the Linewaiters' Gazette

The May 19 issue of Linewaiters' Gazette had this letter from us.  We had 24 signatures.

We joined the coop for the food. We didn't join to have our politics decided for us. We didn't join to have ourselves identified with movements we find objectionable.  We joined for the food...and lots of it.

Sometimes we disagree with each other, even strongly.  Remember the controversies?  Expansion, cheese counter, shopping carts, meat, beer, plastic bags, Barney’s.  Nonetheless, together we work for the good of the store.  We have created a special place where many diverse people work together and form friendships.  We all share our interest in healthy food and we all want to see our coop thrive and prosper.

 

Yet, some people feel entitled to use our good reputation to promote their cause.  Some are so focused on their cause, they cannot see who will be hurt in the process.  We refer to the people who have submitted an item to the agenda committee to hold a referendum on joining the BDS (boycott, divest and sanctions of Israel) movement.

The promotion of this proposal, regardless of outcome, will alienate a substantial number of coop members.  Many will choose to leave because they will no longer feel welcomed.  Have the promoters of BDS considered the potential financial impact on the coop?  We have a legitimate right to a peaceful, conflict-free, profitable coop.

We oppose the forwarding of this item to the General Meeting and we call upon the submitters to voluntarily withdraw it, because we believe the coop is about food first, even food politics, but not geo-politics.  Our aisles are already filled with shoppers and carts; we don’t need soap boxes, too.  Give peas a chance.

BDS and Food Coops - Davis

A year ago, the board of the Davis Food Co-op was faced with a BDS initiative.  They determined that BDS was not appropriate for their coop and did not allow a member-wide vote to go forward.  I summarized their reasons in a letter published in the Linewaiters' Gazette in September 2010.

The Davis Food Coop was also faced with members suggesting the coop join the boycott. Davis’ by-laws require that the co-op’s board of directors first approve a vote by determining if the proposed question is legal and serves a e “proper purpose.” After research and discussion with the membership, the Davis board determined the boycott failed the “proper purpose” test. The board reasoned that participation in the boycott would conflict with the general principles of the international co-op movement (the Rochdale Principles) which emphasize “political (and religious) neutrality and the dangers of meddling in political (and religious) affairs.” It would require the organization to accept as truth statements that could, at best, be characterized as opinion or selective presentations of fact. Furthermore, the board noted that cooperatives “that have failed to abide by this essential principle of political neutrality have been harmed by the divisiveness that such issues cause among members.”

It is worthwhile to read the entire text of the Board's resolution.  The Davis Co-op ended up dedicating a full page of their web-site to the BDS issue and debate at their coop.  This is a preview for what is in store for us, if the proposal moves forward.

Buy Dorot chopped frozen herbs.

More Hummus, Please

We joined the co-op for the food. We didn't join to have our politics decided for us. We didn't join to have ourselves identified with an organization that supports something we don't support. We joined for the food...and lots of it.

Today, we met. There were 19 of us who oppose the coop joining the BDS movement. We decided for every issue of Linewaiters' Gazette to submit a letter stating reasons why joining BDS is detrimental to the coop. We will all put our names on the letters.

Then we wanted a name for our group. We chose "More Hummus, Please." We want hummus...and local produce, organic vegetables, environmentally-friendly products and we want a pleasant store, where we will feel welcomed. Food brings people together.

In the spirit of food, and bringing people together, I share with you this video from the folks at Israel21c. "Taste of Peace" is a unique master chef's team based in Jerusalem, consisting of a Jewish, Arab Christian, Arab Muslim, and Armenian chef. They recently won several Gold Medals in the "Olympics of Cooking", the Villeroy and Boch Culinary World Cup, in Luxembourg. Here they cook a lavish meal together in a Jerusalem home. Video by Harvey Stein.

Four Jerusalem chefs - hey, where is the hummous?

And So It Begins....

Apparently, I was wrong.  The BDS promoters have submitted a proposal to the agenda committee to conduct a membership-wide referendum to join BDS.   Even the text of the proposal is a vilifying slander, but we will leave that analysis for another day.

So, what does it mean?  The good news: We have already thwarted part 1 of the worst case scenario.  We will not be caught off guard.  We now have at least a few months to prepare.  There are 4 agenda items ahead of the BDS proposal in the queue, and 3 more behind it.  Two of the subsequent items relate directly to the operation of the coop.  Also, in any month, a new item can be submitted and brought to that month's General Meeting if the Agenda Committee determines it deserves priority.

The bad news: If the proposal comes to the GM, we will still have part 2 of the worst case scenario - a horrible, vitriolic meeting where we will be confronting the BDS lies. 

Now is the time to organize to oppose BDS.  We don't want the proposal to hold a referendum to pass at the GM.   We don't even want the proposal to get to the GM.  We don't want further BDS discussion in the Linewaiters' Gazette.  We are not alone.

I am going to arrange an opposition meeting for the first or second week of May.  We will discuss strategies, tactics and talking points.  I will post the time and location as soon as it is determined.

In the meantime, buy Masada bath salts at the Food Coop.

 

BDS and Food Coops

Divest This! has been blogging for the past 2 years about the many failures and faux successes of the BDS movement.  He has covered many BDS attempts in depth, providing insightful commentary and some humor, too.  This excellent guide (free and downloadable) for countering BDS attempts in your campus or community is a product of his fine work.

Divest This! has extensively covered BDS attempts at Food Coops (which he writes as "co-op", in case you want to search his blog).   A Tale of Two Co-ops compares how BDS was handled by the Davis Food Coop - where it was rejected as inappropriate - and Olympia Food Coop - where it passed by a questionable procedure.  He also reports on the BDS failures at Port Townshend, Madsison Market, Sacramento and Seattle. 

A common theme is the negative effect of the BDS proposal had at all these communities.

Stopping Rumors

During the Open Forum at the January 2009 General Meeting a member asked what products we carry from Israel and suggested the coop join BDS.  The Forward wrote an article about it, which read as if joining BDS was a serious consideration.  The news spread like wildfire across the internet.  Of course, nothing came of it, except for a series of letters in the Linewaiters' Gazette.

As far as I know, no one has submitted an agenda item.  I intend to stay on top of it and I hope it will never get that far.  So please, don't start rumors that the coop is considering BDS.

Speaking of rumors, Judge Richard Goldstone, author of the eponymously known report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, wrote an op-ed in Friday's Washington Post.  He now says that his most serious allegation against Israel, that civilians were intentionally targeted, is unsubstantiated.

The Goldstone Report is a seriously flawed document.  Anyone honestly interested in peace should read intelligent articles that  illuminate the principles of international law that apply and  analyze the shortcomings of the report.  This article, by Peter Berkowitz, a review of a recent publication of the Goldstone Report and related essays, is a good place to start.  It is important to read these sorts of articles because too many people throw around terms in ways that show they don't what they are talking about.

Products from Israel at the Coop

I went shopping tonight and here are some of things from Israel I found in the coop:

• Yehuda Matzos - in the Passover section
• Organic Tomatoes on the Vine - alas, I only saw the sign, there were none on the shelves when we were there. 
• Sabra Hummous - this is actually made in America, although the company is half-owned by an Israeli company.  But I bought some because it was a target of a FAILED BDS effort at Princeton University in December 2010.
• Dorot Frozen Herbs - You will find these in the freezer section.  These are containers of 20 individual teaspoons for frozen herbs.  There is parsley, garlic, ginger, cilantro, basil and hot pepper varieties.  A great idea when you are in a hurry to prepare a meal.
• Masada Foot Scrub - smooth your callouses away.
• Masada Bath Salts - the coop had 4 varieties on the shelf, when I was there.  You can get detox, muscle relax, rejuvenate, refresh.  They all sounded wonderful to me. 
• Mud - a face mask that will make your skin smooth and resilient.

Pick up a few of these on your next food coop visit.  Let me know if you see any other products.

Tomorrow Is a BIG Day

Wednesday, March 30, is Buy Israeli Goods day, a day set aside to counter an annual BDS day of action for that same date.

I don't know what the coop is stocking these days, but go see if there are any organic pepper from Israel, or marshmallows, or bath salts from the Dead Sea.  But, if you're out shopping, make a point to buy something.

Here is a link on how to find more Israeli Products in local stores. 

Read more at StandWithUs