Park Slope Food Co-op vote on Israel boycott sparks internal turmoil

The Park Slope Food Co-op is heading into a bruising vote that could alter how one of America’s oldest and largest food cooperatives governs itself, and whether it turns a long-running political fight into formal policy. The Brooklyn grocery, founded in 1973 and now counting roughly 16,000 to 17,000 members, will take up a proposed boycott of Israeli products, alongside a separate vote on whether to allow hybrid meetings that would let members participate remotely.

At the center of the dispute is not just the boycott itself, but the rules required to pass it. The co-op currently requires a 75% supermajority for boycott actions, and supporters want to lower that bar to 51%. They say the campaign is largely symbolic because the store carries only a handful of Israeli items, including Al Arz tahini, a brand founded by an Israeli Arab in Nazareth that was later bought in 2022 by the Sugat Group, an Israeli company.

The fight has been building for more than a decade. Supporters trace their organizing to 2009, in response to Israel’s Cast Lead operation in Gaza, and a proposed referendum in 2012 never reached members. The push resurfaced after Oct. 7, 2023, and PSFC Members for Palestine says more than 3,800 members have signed its petition backing removal of Israeli products. Opponents, organized under the name Coop4Unity, say the boycott drive is divisive and that changing the meeting format and voting rules would distort the co-op’s long-standing decision-making culture to help the boycott pass.

The tension has spread beyond the formal agenda. Public organizing outside the store has intensified in recent weeks, with competing camps visible near the co-op’s Prospect Park neighborhood. The issue has also spilled into board politics, making the vote part of a broader struggle over who sets the tone for the institution and what kinds of activism belong inside it. That unease has been sharp enough that the co-op’s general manager told members recent meetings had become tense, combative or unproductive, and that some members, including people whose identities feel threatened, had stopped participating.

The conflict has drawn in outside pressure as well. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law urged the co-op to cancel the vote or hold it by confidential referendum, citing intimidation and antisemitic hostility toward Jewish members. Some Jewish members have said they felt hurt, targeted and unwelcome. What was once a grocery dispute has become a test of whether a member-owned institution in Brownstone Brooklyn can keep its core purpose intact while international conflict pulls its governance into the center of local politics.