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Dershowitz v. Park Slope Food Coop

Fight over boycott escalates outside the aisles

by
Stephanie Butnick
August 03, 2011
The Park Slope Food Coop.(Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
The Park Slope Food Coop.(Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

Tensions are high after a meeting to discuss whether the Park Slope Food Coop, a popular, members-only Brooklyn food market, should eventually have a referendum to participate in the movement to boycott Israeli goods. The B.D.S. movement, as it is known, seeks the boycott, divestment and sanctioning of companies and products that come from Israel.

Over at the New York Observer, Matt Chabon weighs in on the controversy, which has pitted members against one another and drawn the ire of Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who calls proponents of the movement anti-Semitic. Though a true boycott of Israeli goods—and there are believed to be actually very few of them—would require a thorough accounting of the Coop’s suppliers, the push toward endorsing the B.D.S. movement seems to be mostly a political statement.

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.