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In the past 52 years, the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn has become a local institution. In exchange for cheap fruit and vegetables, member-owners work occasional shifts and make group decisions on the store operations. But since the beginning of the war in Gaza, the cooperative has become divided over talk of a boycott of Israeli goods. NPR's Vanessa Romo has more.
VANESSA ROMO, BYLINE: For many in progressive foodie circles, the Park Slope Food Coop is a whole scene.
RAMON MAISLEN: So you're going to get amazing farm-fresh eggs and various kimchis or tofus at very good prices.
ROMO: That's Ramon Maislen, who's walking me through the tightly packed store. He jokes that over the decades, the place has become somewhat infamous for impassioned yet completely mundane disputes. Exhibit A.
MAISLEN: Should the coop sell meat? Should the coop sell beer?
ROMO: But the latest fight is a lot more fraught. Since the breakout of the war in October 2023, the membership has been roiled by conflict. One group, called the Park Slope Food Coop Members for Palestine, wants the store to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, also known as BDS. Now they're being accused of fomenting antisemitism by several members of the pro-Israel coalition Coop 4 Unity, which opposes the idea of a boycott. Sondra Shaievitz is a member of that group. She's Jewish, and she says she was accosted by a BDS supporter last year while handing out anti-boycott fliers.
SONDRA SHAIEVITZ: And then, all of a sudden, he says to me, are you a Zionist? She's a Zionist. She's a Zionist.
ROMO: That incident, combined with a few others, eventually drove Maislen to file a complaint with New York's Division of Human Rights. In it, he alleges Jewish members are experiencing antisemitism and discrimination and that the co-op isn't doing anything about it. That's launched an investigation that's still ongoing. Both the co-op and the state agency declined to comment on its status. Meanwhile, several pro-BDS members say they don't want to dismiss the incidents that have been reported, but they say that it's only a handful of bad actors, and they don't accurately reflect the values of the boycott movement.
ALYCE BARR: Our co-op has, like, a long, beautiful legacy of social justice and food justice.
ROMO: That's Alyce Barr, who's been a co-op member since 1978. She's supported previous boycotts and says that as a Jewish member, she's on board with this one, too.
BARR: We boycotted Chile during Pinochet. We supported the United Farm Workers Union and boycotted U.S. grapes on non-union farms.
ROMO: The store actually only stocks a handful of goods from Israel, like Passover specialty items and peppers in the winter. But Dan Kaminsky, another Jewish member who supports the boycott, says, that's not the point.
DAN KAMINSKY: For me, the point is more, we are the oldest and largest cooperative in America, so what we do does have implications for all cooperatives across the country.
ROMO: For the past few months, this conflict has been playing out against the backdrop of an election. Two seats on the co-op's six-member board of directors were opening up. Both sides ran candidates, which included Kaminsky. They all hoped to shape the leadership of the co-op and, by extension, the debate on the boycott. In the end, on the evening of June 24, some roughly 200 members gathered in a Prospect Park building to vote on new leadership. The result - pro-BDS-endorsed candidates lost. One seat went to a Coop 4 Unity candidate. The second went to Brandon West, a self-described middle-of-the-road candidate who was running for reelection on a platform of improving governance and decision making.
BRANDON WEST: I was frankly, like, a little surprised the amount of yes votes for me.
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ROMO: The day after the vote, Alyce Barr was back at the co-op.
BARR: I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised.
ROMO: All she wants is the chance to actually hold a vote on the boycott, and she might actually get it. Even though West wasn't endorsed by the co-op members for Palestine, when it comes to a boycott, he says...
WEST: I personally support it, you know, pretty strongly.
ROMO: So with West still on the board, it turns out there is enough support among board members to potentially advance a boycott vote, as soon as they can agree on when to hold it.
For NPR News, I'm Vanessa Romo.
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