Brooklyn, NY — On Tuesday, May 26, Park Slope Food Coop members will gather for a historic vote on a proposed boycott of Israeli products. The vote has been years in the making. Coop members first began organizing in 2009 in response to Israel's "Cast Lead" assault on Gaza, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians. The campaign was reinvigorated in 2023 in the context of Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, where over 75,000 people have been killed to date. During that same time, over 3,800 of the Coop's members have signed PSFC Members for Palestine's petition to remove Israeli products from the Coop's shelves in solidarity with the nonviolent, Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

With 17,000 members, the Park Slope Food Coop is one of the largest and oldest member-run food cooperatives in the country. A decision to boycott could have a ripple effect on communities and institutions in New York City and beyond. Back in 2012, a proposed referendum was blocked, meaning the decision to boycott Israeli products has never been put to the membership. Now, thanks to nearly two decades of organizing, and in spite of repeated obstruction, Coop members will finally have the chance to make their voices heard.

Our campaign has repeatedly been met with violent threats and intimidation from Zionist groups. Pro-Israel Coop members (calling themselves "Coop 4 Unity") and external right-wing Zionist groups have continually interfered with Coop affairs. In 2024, they emailed Department of Education administrators and CUNY schools, using bigoted language and threats to pressure venues into denying or canceling space rentals for boycott-related meetings. Additionally, the website Israel War Room bought online attack ads to smear then-board candidates Tess Brown-Lavoie and Keyian Vafai as antisemitic for their support of Palestinian rights.

This past Saturday, a pro-boycott canvasser was verbally abused by Zionist Coop members and passersby with a homophobic and misogynistic slur. Another member flipped the canvassers' table and dumped pro-boycott materials in the street. Zionist groups and other right-wing extremists are using similar tactics across the city and country to chill dissent.

Throughout the campaign, Coop managers have also obstructed the vote and vilified pro-Palestine members and their organizing efforts, putting their thumbs on the scale in board elections and opposing the proposed boycott and the use of hybrid meetings, while simultaneously saying they were "obligated to support the Coop's democratic processes" and ignoring the Coop's long history of boycotts. "I was proud to join a Coop that started with a boycott of apartheid South African goods," said Alyce Barr, a member since 1978. "I stayed proud when we boycotted non-UFW grapes, Pinochet Chilean products, Citibank, and many more. I'm a Jewish member, and for years I've been ashamed that we haven't boycotted apartheid Israeli products."

Some local organizations have also severed their ties to Israeli companies and companies complicit in the genocide in recent years, including the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Greene Hill Food Co-op, and NYC Health + Hospitals. If passed, the boycott will join these local BDS victories. The boycott at the Coop has been endorsed by organizations including the American Council for Judaism, Art Against Displacement, Brooklyn For Peace, CUNY FSJP, Jewish Voice For Peace - New York, PAL-Awda NY/NJ, and Shoresh.

A boycott of Israeli goods is especially urgent given the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the spread of war in the region. This campaign is also a fight for the future of the Coop: is it a place where New Yorkers can buy discounted organic food? Or is it a place that stands behind its mission: "to maximize participation at every level," "to be a responsible and ethical neighbor," and "to avoid products that depend on the exploitation of others"? On May 26, Coop members will decide.

For more about PSFC Members for Palestine, visit psfc4palestine.org or @psfc4palestine on Instagram.