Park Slope coop vote leaves some Jewish members fearing for their safety

Jewish shoppers are growing increasingly fearful over demands to ban Israeli products from the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn.

Some members of coop are demanding that the lefty organization join the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement by rejecting Israeli products like matzo and hummus, while others say their own safety is being put at risk by the more radical members.

“The vote was originally set to happen at a meeting at The Picnic House in Prospect Park on Tuesday, but it had to be moved to a Zoom-only vote after many of the coop’s 15,000 members raised ‘explicit concerns about their safety,'” The New York Post reported.

Ramon Maislen told The Post that people “were nervous to go physically.”

“They are fairly violent,” he claimed of the anti-Israel segment.

Others indicated concerns that those who voted against the BDS movement would be harassed, and even the coop’s coordinators, Ann Herpel and Matt Hoagland, said they could not “guarantee their security” despite escalated safety measures.

All of this over a vote that is largely symbolic in nature, and would not actually accomplish anything except legitimizing leftwing hatred of Israel.

From The New York Post:

Tuesday’s vote — which has been on the table for over a year — is the culmination of an anti-Israel movement at the coop that has been raging since 2012.

It all got worse after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel and the war in Gaza.

Maislen filed a complaint with the state Human Rights Division in 2024, alleging he and other Jewish members were harassed for opposing the campaign to boycott Israeli products.

Then, at last month’s meeting, a coop member sparked outrage when he declared, “Jewish supremacism is a problem in this country,” and compared Jews to Nazis.

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Meanwhile, the pro-Palestine contingent continues to gather outside the Park Slope Food Coop.

“Vote yes to not be silent during genocide. Be on the right side of history at the coop,” said one woman, who boasted a shirt saying “I’m Jewish and I’m against genocide.”

While this may be a hit with the radical population, other shoppers are being turned off by the behavior of the BDS supporters.

“Noah Potter, 54, a lawyer and a coop member since 2012, said that if the board votes yes, it will be a ‘scalp hanging from the belt’ of the BDS movement,” The Post wrote.

“It’s about putting the coop’s brand on the BDS ideology,” he added. “In practice, when BDS comes into an organization, the modus operandi is to polarize and expel, purge and cause the organization to adopt a statement that is highly reductionist, and inflammatory, and assigns blame to the extent of incarnating evil.”

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