Jewish Pittsburghers react to union’s BDS attempt at East End Food Co-op

Simone Shapiro attended the East End Food Co-op’s monthly board meeting on Sept. 23, prepared to discuss a petition circulated by the union representing the store’s employees that calls for the co-op to divest from any entity associated with Israel.

“What actually happened,” Shapiro said, “was it became a courtroom debating the war in Gaza.”

Shapiro, who has been a member of the co-op for over 20 years, said she decided to attend the meeting after learning of the anti-Israel petition on social media. She read UE Local 667’s divestment petition and was disturbed. She also noticed there was no opportunity to vote against the proposal.

The meeting’s agenda didn’t list the petition as an item of discussion but “it felt like it was going to come up somehow,” she said.

Board President Tom Pandaleon opened the discussion by saying anyone who wished to comment would have an opportunity to speak. Comments were supposed to last two minutes and he asked that people remain polite and address the board, not individual members.

Shapiro said the first person to speak was the union’s president, Fritz Geist.

“She read this very accusatory petition…the ‘Zionist entity,’ the ‘genocidal entity,’” Shapiro said.

Shapiro said she tried to redirect those she whom she characterized as there to “agitate and adjudicate Israel’s war with Hamas.”

“I kept saying we should be discussing this issue, not the war in Gaza,” she said, “but they kept bringing it up.”

Shapiro said she was particularly disturbed by two vehemently anti-Israel people who said they were Jewish. One addressed Shapiro directly in an intimidating manner, before Pandaleon stepped in, telling the speaker to only address the board, Shapiro said.

“They said some things that were actually outrageous,” Shapiro said. “One of these was that Gaza is a police state.”

Comments included accusations of apartheid and genocide, as well as the accusation that “Zionists are Nazis.”

Shapiro said someone on the board mentioned that there are almost no products from Israel at the co-op, but noted that the vote was symbolic.

Shapiro she has always found the co-op to be “diverse and welcoming,” but will stop shopping there if the board votes to divest from Israel.

“Not only would I stop shopping there, I would encourage everyone I know to stop shopping there,” she said.

Ayala Hoch has decided that the actions of the union’s members are a bridge too far for her to cross.

“I’m not stepping a foot back in there,” Hoch, a co-op member of more than 20 years, said.

In fact, Hoch said she’s encouraged others on social media not to shop there as well.

“I wrote in Jewish Pittsburgh (a Facebook group), ‘Do not shop at the East End Food Co-op. They are spreading antisemitic rhetoric, which is spreading like a disease. Do not shop there. It’s dangerous,’” she said. “I wrote it on the co-op’s site as well.”

Hoch said she likes the products carried by the co-op but said it’s become “really hateful.”

“One of the employees was wearing a keffiyeh while at work,” she said. “I went to the manager and said, ‘This is offensive to me.’”

Many of the employees, she said, wear buttons with anti-Israel slogans.

Hoch also attended the September board meeting and, like Shapiro, was upset by union president’s Geist’s comments.

“Every sentence was filled with ‘apartheid regime’ — every sentence,” she said.

Hoch’s husband, Reuven Hoch, said that he and his wife had lived in Israel and that the claims of apartheid are untrue.

“You see Arabs sitting outside with everyone else having a coffee,” he said. “There are Arab and Muslim judges and lawyers and doctors and pharmacists.”

He said the comments of those speaking in favor of divestment showed that they weren’t interested in a cease-fire, but their goal was to see Israel destroyed.

They called Israel “a genocidal state,” and an “apartheid state,” Reuven Hoch recounted. “And they say it very calmly and think they’re right and socially conscious and very moral.”

Chana Shusterman, founder of California Gourmet, attended the meeting as a Jewish owner of a food company. She has been a longtime member of the co-op.

She said that many who are fighting for the store to divest from Israel are missing a larger point.

“I used the example of SodaStream, which had mostly Arab workers who were sustaining their families from the company,” Shusterman said. “It was benefiting Arabs and their families. It was benefiting people that had Palestinian homes and families. There were six SodaStream factories in the region.”

After a call to boycott SodaStream, it moved from the region, Shusterman said. The relocation didn’t hurt Israel, she noted; it instead harmed the Arab workers.

Co-op board member Nico Demkin said the board didn’t view the meeting as a disaster. Rather, he said, it’s the “ugly reality of democracy.”

“We have a very diverse group of members and obviously we have a large Jewish membership,” he said. “We have the union’s membership and other community members.”

Demkin said he expects this will continue to be an issue.

But, he said, the board has no intention to move from its position, which is to reject the call to divest from Israel.

“We don’t condone violence, we hope for peace, but we don’t feel it’s our place to weigh in on either side,” he said.

StandWithUs MidAtlantic Regional Director Julie Paris is a member of the co-op and attended the meeting.

The “misinformation and propaganda” circulated at the meeting, was “disturbing and dangerous,” she said, adding that the union is attempting to “demonize Israel” and delegitimize its right to exist and defend itself.

The co-op’s board, Paris said, should view its meetings as an opportunity to clarify its positions, especially about employees who wear anti-Israel and anti-Zionist material at work and argue with customers.

And, she said, education would “go a long way.”

“This is a learning opportunity for people that don’t know about Israel,” she said. “It’s comprised of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Druze, Bahai and every other religion.”

All of those communities would be hurt by boycotts like the one for which the union is lobbying.

“This boycott is misguided,” Paris said. “It gives anti-Israel activists a platform to spew dangerous misinformation, calling Zionists ‘Nazis’ and the usual rhetoric that Israel’s committing genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

In the end, she said, the boycott/divest conversation creates “disunity.”

“This should be about bringing people together over food, shared organic food from different cultures and countries,” Paris said. “I would love to see the board issue a statement doubling down on their commitment to not issue any boycotts and asking the union to recognize this position and not pressure them to do so.”

Another board meeting will be held in October, before the co-op’s annual meeting in November. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.