TRAGEDY
Dear Editor,
The Coop sells my favorite brand of salsa
but only “mild” and “medium”
Where is the “hot”?
I must buy my Green Mountain Gringo elsewhere
Louise Palmer
LONG SHOPPING HOURS
Hello,
Has the Coop considered returning to pre-COVID shopping hours? I seem to remember the shopping floor opening at 6 a.m. and closing at 10 p.m. Our current hours of 8 a.m.–8 p.m. can be pretty limiting during the work week.
Lucia Brockaway
THE GENERAL COORDINATORS RESPOND:
Prior to the pandemic, the Coop was open 8 a.m.–10 p.m., Monday through Friday, 6 a.m.–10 p.m. on Saturday and 6 a.m.–8 p.m. on Sunday. The General Coordinators are planning on extending the hours until 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday, but do not have a date on which the hours will change. We have operational challenges that need to be resolved before making the change. We currently do not have plans to open earlier on the weekends because of other operational challenges.
KEEP ON ROCKIN’ IN THE FREE WORLD (AND IN THE PSFC)
Hi fellow members,
I have a cute short story and media I wanted to share… not sure if it will qualify for posting:
I work in the Membership Office and on my last shift this May I took a call from a fellow Coop member, who explained he was missing some shifts because he was going on tour. Working in the music industry, I naturally asked which tour—he and his choir were invited to play on the nationwide Neil Young tour. What a coincidence! I was going to see Neil Young twice that week (ended up actually being three). He said he’s Reverend Billy Talen and the Stop Shopping Choir, many of whom are Coop members. Neil Young had just plucked them out of the blue and asked them to go on tour with him. I always knew there were various people who worked in the music industry among Coop members, but how serendipitous that I picked up this call and was going to see this show, and that most of the group were Coop members!
Just wanted to share videos of them playing in support of Neil Young in Bridgeport, Connecticut and to acknowledge their achievement and their awesome message of stop climate change/save the Earth!
Thanks,
Natalie Freilich
POETRY OF POLITICS
To the Linewaiters’ Gazette:
Please keep politics out of the Coop;
it does not improve the store.
Just a world more full of weeping
knocking on the door.
Rodger Parsons
LET’S PIVOT BACK TOWARD OUR STRENGTHS
Dear Park Slope Food Coop,
I have seen a flood of letters with regard to the deadly crisis in the Middle East—letters supporting Israel, letters Supporting Palestine, letters calling for a boycott and letters opposing one. Clearly, members of the Coop have many different ideas.
Regardless of what we believe, the Park Slope Food Coop likely cannot solve the problem, and continued debate will only serve to divide and anger our members. Rather, we should focus our energies not on what we cannot solve, but on what we can: supporting our local farms, fighting food insecurity in our own neighborhood, preaching about sustainable food and farming and helping other food coops get started.
Individual members should feel free to support Israel, Palestine, both or neither. But no member should feel that the Coop is not a safe haven to shop. Let’s concentrate on what we do best.
David Meltzer
A THIRD WAY: ENGAGEMENT
Dear Coop,
As our Coop members passionately explore a path to promote a peaceful future for Palestinians and Israelis, I want to highlight grassroots, civil society–based groups working on the ground that are worthy of our encouragement as they make a positive difference in people’s lives through direct engagement with each other.
Standing Together is a movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel against the occupation and for peace, equality and social justice. Co-lead by an Israeli and a Palestinian, this group bravely confronts critical issues head on. The Abraham Initiatives‘ mission is to advance social inclusion and equal rights for Israel’s Palestinian citizens in order to promote a more just society existing alongside an independent, sovereign Palestinian state. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel promotes human rights and civil liberties for everyone in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Recognizing the practical need to address environmental issues that do not abruptly stop at a community’s border, the Arava Institute, currently lead by a Palestinian, brings Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians together in graduate studies while confronting their political and cultural differences.
These are just a few examples of humans on the ground, dealing directly with each other. Disengaging from one another is not an option they are willing to take.
In cooperation,
Steven Gold
GROUNDHOG DAY: THE WAR WITHIN THE COOP
Dear Members,
Twelve years ago, in March of 2012, the Coop held a large and very expensive meeting that required security arrangements in order to vote on whether to hold a referendum on boycotting Israeli products. The outcome was a definitive vote against such a referendum in favor of cohesiveness, and against divisiveness, within the Coop.
Like the Dobbs decision that reversed what was considered settled law concerning abortion, the Coop’s current activism by those determined to reverse the anti-referendum vote are back again and if they fail again who knows how many times they will resurface to make still another such proposal, put the Coop in offensive social turmoil and waste Coop time and financial resources.
And given the very minimal relevance of this movement to the Coop’s purpose and values, why should this proposal even be allowed to come to the floor a second time?
Recently, a growing number of academic institutions, the primary sites of BDS activism, are refusing to adopt the BDS agenda, which includes banning association with Israeli scholars and universities, in favor of their core purpose of education and academic debate.
And predictably, anti-Israel activists are becoming increasingly destructive and anti-American, burning Israeli and American flags outside the NYC Israeli embassy and defacing the Brooklyn Museum and the homes of the museum’s president and Jewish board members with red paint, labeling them “white supremacist Zionists,” among the many incidents,.
Finally, note that since January 2009, the Gazette has published 377,684 words concerning this marginally relevant topic, likely dramatically more than any other subject.
On the basis of the arguments provided above, I urge the agenda committee and the board of directors to refuse a second attempt to bring the BDS proposal to a vote.
Sylvia Lowenthal
TRUTH AND/OR CONSEQUENCES
Dear Members,
The internet makes it possible to retrieve all kinds of information practically instantaneously. It’s also excellent for spreading misinformation and disinformation, also known as untruths, false statements or lies.
We are all human and we all want to believe the things that support our confirmation biases. We owe it to ourselves to be curious and to verify things before hitting the “like” button or sharing with others. It’s even more important to verify when dealing with content that informs our actions and opinions.
Our Linewaiters’ Gazette and our General Meetings are also platforms that are susceptible for spreading disinformation and misinformation. A member could knowingly or unknowingly repeat an untruth. The Coop should not be a platform for false information. Who should be responsible for ensuring this doesn’t happen?
The onus should fall on the member. I suggest that if a member provided a statement to the Gazette or the GM, and the statement is later demonstrated to be untrue or incomplete or misleading, that member should lose the privilege of publishing and speaking to the GM for at least one year.
This is a harsh consequence for lying. But if free speech is valued, then it also must be true and accurate and falsehoods should have a cost. Our Coop platforms should not be carelessly abused.
Barbara Mazor
IN DEFENSE OF A PROPOSED BOYCOTT
To the Editors,
I’m a long-time Coop member. I remember when the Coop chose to boycott grapes. Though I adored grapes, I decided that justice was more important than my taste buds. I was a teacher at Smith College during the apartheid struggle in South Africa. I taught my classes in the administration building, occupied by the students. I worked with students, faculty and administration to call a five college teach-in that resulted in significant divestment from South Africa. I was at the Coop meeting that voted not to vote on the current BDS movement. Since then I have been silent. But I do believe that Israel, a state, is doing itself and Jews—and I am a Jew—and the ideas of Judaism, a grave disservice by its eight-month attack, its targeting of hospitals, universities, homes, refugee camps. By its inability to defeat the great violence of Oct. 7 with the greater violence of this relentless assault with U.S. weapons. My concern for the welfare of all people makes me believe in the justice of a BDS Movement that would urge the state of Israel to change its ways. BDS is a nonviolent movement, and the Coop is a nonviolent space, with rancor toward none, good food for all. Would that we could do more to help all those facing starvation. Nevertheless, we are not demanded to finish the work, neither are we allowed to abandon the nonviolent work for justice that lies at the heart of Judaism.
Yours in peace,
Karen Malpede
THE COOP DOES NOT BOYCOTT ISRAEL
Coop members,
Park Slope Food Coop does not boycott Israel in any form and it never will. For good reason. Public boycott advocates (PBAs) here and / or outside PSFC are…
Anti-PSFC: A member at the latest Open Forum openly called for division inside PSFC instead of unity, saying “This is a divisive time,” as if it proved something; Another member in the last Gazette sneered at cooperative volunteer labor here as “a veneer of virtue.”
Anti-working class and anti-creative class: Masked assailants with weapons locked workers inside at Columbia University and physically harassed security workers at Brooklyn Museum, then left behind damaged buildings and artwork for low-wage immigrant employees to clean up.
Pro-violent threats: PBAs splashed the Brooklyn Museum’s Jewish leaders’ houses with paint and painted red triangles (Hamas’ trademark targeting symbol).
Pro Jew-hatred: At the NOVA Music Festival Exhibition, I personally witnessed Hamas supporters and PBAs happily celebrating together outside calling for more Jewish deaths.
Pro-terror: PBAs at PSFC have never ever criticized the truce-breaking, LGBT-murdering, medievally misogynistic, terror-campaign of Hamas towards Jews and Palestinians alike.
Those against boycotting Israel stand naturally with PSFC’s mission of non-violence and cooperation, yet the rest of PSFC’s response has been inadequate. Everyone, floor members, GC’s, staff, etc., please speak up!
Those of you who have signed boycott of Israel petitions may have had no idea what you were supporting. If you can, remove your name and then help to keep BDS outside our Coop.
Jesse Rosenfeld