When Hippies Hate

There was a time, long ago. Back in the drug-addled days of Woodstock. Tie-dyed shirts were formal wear. Hair was both a Broadway musical and a countercultural trademark. During those days, the progressive left—known colloquially at the time as Hippies—knew their proper place, rarely overstepping.

Sure, they made their politics known. And, yes, many wished to change the world by urging to “give peace a chance.” But their groove remained mainly local and cultural. International affairs were largely left to the squares in suits.

Vietnam was important only because American teenagers were being drafted to fight a war on a far-flung continent, all for the purpose of keeping the Cold War on ice. Most people couldn’t find Vietnam on a map. And still can’t.

They also kept their allies to a minimum, and didn’t mistake enemies for friends. An Islamist partnership would have been a major stretch. Hippies would no sooner make common cause with the Klan, or start listening to Perry Como. The ticket to entry for the far left of those days demanded socialist leanings, radical bra-burning, maximal free speech, and Martin Luther King Jr’s civil disobedience (yes, I know, some flirted with Black Power).

Of course, the house was always open for anyone on an acid trip.

Today’s Hippies are known as Progressives. They repurposed the psychedelic dye for their hair, ditched LSD for TDS, and replaced all those peace medallions and love beads with keffiyeh scarves and face masks.

You can find such people on university campuses, of course, but also in the usual lefty haunts of San Francisco and New York City—especially in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope, where the mere word “co-op” can result in ecstasy (not the drug).

Last week the members of the Park Slope Food Coop overwhelmingly voted to boycott Israeli products and to formally join the ranks of the BDS Movement, which is an acronym that most assuredly does not give peace a chance. It has but one goal: not coexistence in the Middle East, but the end of the Jewish state.

The Coop, founded in 1973, has 17,000 members. Nearly 9,000 joined a Zoom meeting to vote on the measure, which passed by a wide margin—67% voted to approve the boycott; 31% opposed; and 2% abstained. Those passionate about granola and mashed yeast, apparently, have been zealously trying to ban Israeli products since 2009.

To achieve this electoral outcome, the Coop’s leadership changed the bylaws and lowered the threshold for passage from a supermajority of 75% to a simple majority of 51%. After more than three hours of presenting the pro-boycott case—without allowing a rebuttal—the membership voted and Israeli oranges suddenly became unkosher in Brooklyn.

This roiling action from last week jolted New York’s Jewish community. Many of the Coop’s members, including some of its top managers, are themselves Jews. This was yet another example of Reform Judaism’s social justice, misapplied tikkun olam obsession, and its steadfast Democratic Party allegiance, fracturing American Jewry over Israel and its war in Gaza.

And now the Park Slope Food Coop has gone the way of Ben & Jerry’s. Several years ago, its corporate overseers forced the two former Brooklyn-born boys of Vermont to end their policy of refusing to sell their ice cream in the West Bank. Two Jews turning their back on Israel is no surprise. Another former Brooklyn Jew living in Vermont, Bernie Sanders, does it all the time. Ben & Jerry’s, after all, is a notoriously woke corporate entity. One of its popular flavors, Cherry Garcia, is loaded with butterfat and flower power nostalgia for the 1960s.

The recent actions by the Coop, however, don’t quite offer the same cholesterol count or critical mass. For all the hippie hoopla, the Coop carries very few Israeli goods, just some tahini, snacks, produce, kosher matzo, hummus, and two hair products.

For that paltry selection of merchandise, you’d think the members came to blows over the fate of the entire produce aisle. Jewish members were literally afraid to attend meetings given how many pro-Palestinian activists were wearing keffiyehs and images of watermelon—Hamas’ latest mascot.

There were reported physical fights outside. Pro-Palestinian activists treated the entrance like a college campus encampment, chanting “genocide,” “apartheid” and “Zionism” right in front of security guards.

A man posting an anti-boycott flyer on a lamppost was physically attacked by a ruffian hopped up on herbal stimulants. Community meetings devolved into conspiracy theories about Jews and their support for Israel. One member compared Jews to Nazis, declaring, “Jewish supremacism is a problem in this country.”

Never before has it been this volatile in the 53-year history of this Brooklyn landmark. A number of Jewish members, with no love lost for the Coop, cancelled their memberships. Others are contemplating legal options.

The National Jewish Advocacy Center filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights. New York law prevents blacklisting products based on protected classes, such as national origin. Another action is planned pursuant to the New York law that governs corporations, of which co-ops are included. Intimidating and harassing your own members may violate the Business Judgment Rule, because the boycott is both grossly negligent and not in the best interests of the corporation.

In advance of the vote, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law sent a letter, to no avail, pressing the Coop to cancel the referendum—specifically, calling attention to security concerns. Brandeis Center’s executive director, Kenneth Marcus, reminded the Coop that BDS itself is inherently antisemitic. “A grocery store should never become a springboard for extremist political campaigns.”

Quite right. Imagine the astonishing amount of hubris it requires for a grocery store that sells only a few Israeli products to believe that the world values its opinion about a conflict it doesn’t really understand and smacks of both antisemitism and its own self-loathing. Today’s hippies sure have an inflated belief in their capacity to change world events by bullying its membership and lashing out for narcissistic attention.

Imagine the astonishing amount of hubris it requires for a grocery store that sells only a few Israeli products to believe that the world values its opinion about a conflict it doesn’t really understand and smacks of both antisemitism and its own self-loathing.

The Park Slope Food Coop is now officially a cliché. It coexists within the overall pro-Hamas crowd in the bewildering confusion about grass roots politics. Screaming is not thoughtful, exclusion is not unifying, violence is not moral, intimidation is not neighborly, bullying is not consensus, and shouting down is not debate.

Ironically—tragically, even more so—but those who voted for the boycott are too antisemitic to realize that their real allies are not Hamas, who have no special affinity for progressives, but the Israelis of southern Israel who, on October 7, 2023, attended their own version of Woodstock at Nova Music Festival. Many had tattoos and wore nose rings. They beheld the stars like time-travelers to the Age of Aquarius. All were feminists and many counted themselves among Israel’s vibrant LGBTQ community.

Queers for Palestine?

The October 7 victims awoke to a nightmare on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah—on Shabbat, no less. How more secular and progressive could they be? Southern Israel is teeming with kibbutzim that harvest the very fruits and vegetables that are the lifeblood and earthy sustenance of the Coop.

The one community that should have shown unwavering solidarity with Israel after October 7 was the Park Slope Food Coop. Unless they were tripping out on antisemitism last week, what could possibly have drawn them to the side of carnivorous barbarians?