NEW YORK – The Park Slope Food Co-op is more than a discounted indie grocer – though, on any given day, there are about 10 varieties of locally grown mushrooms and shoppers can buy a dozen organic eggs for $3.62. In the 52 years since its founding, the member-owned store has become a community hub, and membership to the Brooklyn-based store is considered a flex in some progressive foodie circles.
Alex Fagella joined the co-op in June but said he'd been thinking about it for years.
"I joined because of the ethos behind it in the way that it operates," Fagella told NPR. Its 16,700 members each work 2 hour and 45 minute shifts every six weeks in exchange for access to heavily discounted groceries and ability to vote on store policies.
So far, it's been everything he expected. Though he's only shopped in the store once, Fagella said the produce is amazing and the bulk items are indeed a bargain. But more than that, he said, he has wanted to be a part of the larger decision-making community. As one of the largest co-ops in the country, the PSFC relies on members to collectively weigh in on everything including how loud music should be played in the store, whether it should allow alcohol and what should be stocked on its shelves.
"I want to go to the meetings just as much as I want to shop there," he said, explaining why he was outside of the co-op's latest monthly general meeting at the Prospect Park Picnic House in Brooklyn.
His impression so far? It's intense.
That's because for the last 21 months, the war in Gaza has catalyzed division among many co-op members. On one side is a pro-Palestinian bloc called PSFC for Palestine, which is pushing the organization to boycott products made in Israel. On the other, there's the pro-Israeli Co-op 4 Unity group, calling on members to reject what they say is "the bigotry, divisiveness and animosity created by the [boycott] campaign." Some members of the group have alleged that antisemitism has been playing out at the store, on its front sidewalks and during the monthly general meetings.
In recent months, the division became even more charged. A June election for new members of the board of directors launched campaigns from candidates on both sides of the boycott debate — hoping to determine the direction the co-op will take.
Claims of antisemitism and discrimination
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, some pro-Israel Jewish co-op members have alleged they've experienced various forms of hostility from members who support the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, known as BDS.
"This used to be the most wonderful community … and I used to love the meetings," Sondra Schaievitz, a co-op member for 31 years, told NPR. In fact, she said, the co-op is one of the reasons she moved to Park Slope in the first place, because of the quality of the food and her vegan lifestyle.
"Now the meetings have been overtaken by divisive politics. And now [the pro-BDS members] don't care that many members of the co-op feel unwelcome and unsafe by their actions," she said.
Last May, Schaievitz unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the board in order to push back on the pro-BDS movement. One day during her campaign, while handing out fliers opposing the boycott, she said a tall, muscular man approached her.
"Then all of a sudden, he says to me, 'Are you a Zionist?' As if that's something bad. To me that just means that I don't think Israel should be destroyed. I don't think that's controversial," she recounted.
But the man began screaming at her, according to Schaeivitz and a few other members of the Co-op 4 Unity who said they witnessed the incident. Schaeivitz said she texted for help, and people quickly showed up. Eventually a member of the PSFC Members for Palestine was finally able to calm the man.
"Now I feel anxiety when I have to get groceries, and I'm not the only one," she said.
Ramon Maislen, another former Co-op 4 Unity board candidate in the previous election, went as far as to file a complaint with New York's state Division of Human Rights last October, on the one-year anniversary of the war in Gaza, alleging antisemitism and discrimination by the co-op.
The 44-year-old Israeli American real estate developer told NPR he filed the complaint because other members have been afraid to step forward, fearing retribution or further attacks. The complaint includes accounts of several clashes between Co-op for Unity supporters and PSFC Members for Palestine. In some cases, Maislen alleges in the complaint, some co-op members referred to some Jewish members as Nazis, accused them of supporting genocide, and in one instance told an Israeli Jewish woman she "smells of Palestinian blood."
During the April general meeting, Maislen said he tried to talk about reconciliation and trying to work together. But he said he was booed by some members of the audience.
In interviews with NPR, several pro-BDS members said they don't want to dismiss the incidents that have been reported, but they say it is only a handful of bad actors who do not accurately reflect the values of the boycott movement.
Abdi Dirie, who's Muslim and joined in 2021, said he shops at the co-op weekly and has noticed no changes. "I personally haven't felt like it's been a tense environment to go do my grocery shopping or buy my other daily essentials. It's just kind of always been the same, lovely community."
Still, word has spread and recently caught the ear of U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres from the Bronx. He's demanding that the state Division of Human Rights and NYC Commission on Human Rights investigate allegations of "an insidious pattern of harassment, intimidation, and discrimination" against Jews.
Both the Park Slope Food Co-op and New York's Division of Human Rights declined to comment on the state of the investigations.
"A long, beautiful legacy of social justice and food justice"
It's not the first time the PSFC has taken up the issue of a boycott. During Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship in Chile, the co-op banned products from that country from 1973 through 1990. It also supported the United Farm Workers Union, shunning U.S. grapes from non-union farms in the 1980s.
Alyce Barr, a PSFC member for nearly 50 years who supports the BDS movement, told NPR that the co-op also has boycotted Coca-Cola over labor practices outside of the U.S. and "Nestlé over unethical use of baby formula in the developing world."
"Our co-op has a long, beautiful legacy of social justice and food justice," Barr told NPR, adding that she'd like to see the membership take up more boycotts.
The store only stocks a handful of goods from Israel at any given time, according to Ann Herpel, one of the co-op's general coordinators. During Passover, there are specialty items that take up almost an entire aisle. In the winter, the store imports Israeli peppers. Sabra brand hummus is also on the list, though the Israeli manufacturer that owned half of the company has since sold its share to PepsiCo.
Dan Kaminsky, one of the PSFC Members for Palestine candidates, told NPR that the relatively small number of products to be boycotted has been used to dismiss his group's argument.
"For me the point is more that we're the oldest and largest cooperative in America. So what we do does have implications for all cooperatives across the country and even Democratic organizations right now," Kaminsky said, noting that Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Dan Goldman live just blocks away from the co-op.
Approval of a boycott, he said, would be "a pretty loud statement that, hey, you are out of step with your constituents."
Kaminsky, who is Jewish, said he's also been a victim of antisemitism at the co-op – from fellow Jewish members. "Just last week, I got called a "token Jew" and I got called an antisemite. The height of antisemitism for me has been by Jewish co-op members who aren't willing to engage with the fact that I have a different opinion with them and are sort of policing the boundaries of what it means to be Jewish."
The problem, he contended, is that the conflict has been allowed to fester by a board of directors that's anti-boycott. This isn't the first time that a boycott of Israeli products has come up at the co-op; in 2012, the issue was brought to a vote and rejected.
Kaminsky also asserted that the board has prevented the collective from taking up the issue in a straightforward vote these past few years by claiming that it doesn't have the space to accommodate the turnout.
"This conversation, meaning the boycott, would engage thousands of members," Kaminsky said. "Thousands of them would want to vote on it, but because the Picnic House only houses 250 people, they would not be able to. And so I believe that is fundamentally anti-democratic."
That's a driving factor behind why the PSFC members for Palestine group recently backed a separate referendum that was also on the June ballot to allow future hybrid meetings and online voting. It was intended to provide greater access to the machinations of the co-op and to accommodate members with disabilities, the elderly and parents who can't make it to the hours-long evening meetings, according to CJ Glackin, one of the sponsors of the referendum. But before long, that proposal became associated with the BDS push, Glackin said.
Organizing an in-person vote on the referendum proved to be difficult. There was supposed to be a vote at the April general meeting; the co-op had even booked a different venue, Brooklyn Technical High School, to accommodate a larger crowd. But at the last minute, the meeting was canceled because the school said it had received several emails stating that the vote would potentially incite violence. In the end, the co-op allowed online voting, and the meeting became hybrid.
The scene from election night
On June 24, the night of the most recent meeting, members hurried into the Picnic House to hear the results of the votes.
Though voting had closed earlier that morning, Coop 4 Unity and PSFC Members for Palestine candidates set up tables with some of their literature outside of the building. Many attendees wore T-shirts or carried signs indicating their allegiance.
Reporters were not allowed to attend the meeting, but the raucous crowd could be heard from outside. When Lynn Husum, a Coop 4 Unity candidate, was announced as one of the two winners, her group cheered loudly. The second seat went to Brandon West, a self-described "middle-of-the-road" candidate, who was running for re-election. Neither of the PSFC Members for Palestine candidates won.
Before the meeting, West had told NPR he had little hope he'd win, saying that his measured message about improving the processes of how the co-op functions, probably hadn't resonated with enough people.
"I want to really deal with the core problem, which is that we need to have a better way of dealing with governance and decision making." It's the only way for the co-op to get out of the limbo it's been stuck in for nearly two years, West said.
Much to his surprise, it seemed people were looking for a more tempered approach.
As for the results of the hybrid voting referendum? The measure needed 66.6% approval but only received 66.43% — meaning it failed to pass by just 15 votes, according to general coordinator Ann Herpel.
Even though neither candidate from PSFC Members for Palestine won, the door is still open for a potential boycott. West calls himself a strong supporter of the idea and by remaining on the board, the pro-boycott directors now outnumber the Coop 4 Unity candidates 4 to 2. It'll just be a bit harder now because it'll have to be in-person, which means finding a venue big enough to hold the impassioned crowd.
On his way out of the meeting, new member Alex Fagella shook his head and rubbed his face. After sitting through the two-and-a-half hour-long meeting, he said he had trouble making sense of what he'd witnessed.
"Honestly, I'm still so confused," he said.
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