As those of you who pay attention to critical foreign policy issues may know, the Park Slope Food Co-op voted yesterday against a referendum that called for a vote on a ban of Israeli products. Technically, the meeting wasn’t open to the press, but as a part of both the co-op and the media, we try to embrace our multi-faceted identity. We felt it our civic duty to attend. Read More
Forget the presidential elections. In the most closely watched vote of the year—they were tuning in on the other side of the globe—the Park Slope Food Co-op, that bastion of democracy, voted almost 3-2 not to hold a co-op-wide vote on whether to ban organic goods from the organic grocer’s shelves. Read More
Probably the last person anyone would ever expect to shop at the Park Slope Food Co-op has decided to weigh in on the heated controversy roiling the organic aisles of the brownstone bastion. At the ribbon-cutting for Steiner Studios this morning, Mayor Bloomberg was asked for his position on the proposed Israel boycott. Were he to actually don an apron and sort bulk natural supplements for two hours a month, the mayor’s vote would be a resounding “no.”
For those who know the mayor and his non-New York politics, the reasoning is simple. Like fellow pol Chuck Schumer, he is a staunch defender of Israel. (You don’t have to be Jewish to boycott the boycott, either, as Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio did earlier today.) In fact, the mayor encouraged stronger ties with the Land of Milk and Honey. Read More
If you thought the looming debate on an Israel boycottwas a real crisis of conscience for the Park Slope Food Co-op, that has nothing on the pending decision to abolish plastic bags. Not grocery bags, which were done away with years ago, but plastic produce bags, something that actually costs the glorious grocer $22,000 a year. Read More
We already know how Andrea Peyser feels about the Park Slope Food Co-op’s proposed boycott of Israeli goods, but now an even bigger inorganic bloviator has weighed in: Glenn Beck. Read More
While desperately lacking in commentary from Alan Dershowitz, The Journal has a nice update on the Park Slope Food Co-op’s Israel boycott. The paper reveals that an Escherish vote-on-whehter-or-not-to-vote will take place at the end of March, and more than 1,000 cooperators are expected to turn out, about one-tenth of the Read More
The Observer‘s favorite newspaper columnist weighed in on our favorite grocer today. “Here’s Reason No. 501 never to set foot in the People’s Republic of Park Slope,” Andrea Peyser declares in The Post, referring to the brewing Israel boycott at the Park Slope Food Co-op. Her screed is as loud and droning as a Phish concert. Read More
That’s what a co-op member who works in Manhattan P.R. reminded The Observer in an email yesterday. Read More
On the progressive blog Waging Nonviolence, Kiera Feldman mounts a vociferous defense of the Park Slope Co-op’s right to boycott Israeli goods, should its members feel so inclined. It is in large part a 1,600-word critique of The Observer‘s recent series on the BDS debate that has swept the brownstone bastion in recent months. We considered grabbing a few paragraphs for a “smug” blockquote commentary of our own, but instead, we’re giving the subject a full airing here, republished with permission. Read More
With world leaders taking sides in the debate over a boycott of Israeli products at the Park Slope Food Co-op, what do the members, those who are not leading the fight, think? Outside 782 Union Street on Monday night, the signature green-and-red neon sign buzzing overhead, The Observer encountered the kind of zealous ambivalence and shoulder-shrugging apathy so often associated with Brownstone Brooklyn.
“Why are they boycotting Israel? What about China? It’s stupid,” said Andrew Sepulveda. “You know, we’ve got these water bottles that say ‘Designed in America,’ but they’re made in China. And sometimes you open them up and there are little notes inside and it says, ‘Help me. They’ve got a gun to my head.’ What are we doing about that?” Read More
