Anti-Zionist protesters in New York City in May 2026. Photo: Zuma Press Wire via Reuters Connect

A popular food cooperative in Brooklyn was warned on Thursday by a prominent Jewish advocacy group that conduct surrounding an upcoming vote on boycotting Israeli products may constitute unlawful antisemitic discrimination.

The warning came amid an increasingly contentious debate at the Park Slope Food Co-op over a proposed measure to ban the sale of Israeli products. Supporters of the boycott accuse Israel of committing human rights abuses in Gaza, allegations that Israeli officials and supporters strongly reject.

In a demand letter sent to the coop’s leadership, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law alleged that debate surrounding the measure has coincided with antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation directed at Jewish members.

According to the letter, one activist declared during a committee meeting that “Jewish supremacism is a problem in this country” — language Jewish advocacy groups have long associated with antisemitic tropes about Jewish power and influence.

The Brandeis Center further alleged that Jewish co-op members were intimidated during meetings that became increasingly “tense” and “combative,” with some members now avoiding deliberations surrounding the proposal because of what they described as a hostile atmosphere.

With preparations to overturn a bylaw which requires a 75 percent majority to approve a boycott already underway, the Brandeis Center warned that the co-op could face legal exposure if it fails to ensure Jewish members can participate equally and safely in the voting process.

“Jewish people should not have to choose between local organic food and their safety and their voice,” Brandeis Center chairman and founder Kenneth Marcus said in a statement.

“The Park Slope Food Co-op has an obligation to protect its Jewish members, not just during this vote, but as a matter of basic institutional responsibility,” Marcus continued. “This is not a hypothetical concern; it’s the reality the co-op’s own leadership has admitted is happening.”

He added that safeguards surrounding the vote were “the minimum condition for a legitimate vote and a basic obligation to the safety and dignity of every Jewish member.”

The controversy at the Park Slope Food Co-op coincides with broader tensions in New York City over antisemitism and anti-Israel activism following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Earlier this month, masses of anti-Israel demonstrators marched through the heavily Jewish Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn and protested outside Young Israel of Midwood synagogue over its involvement in selling land they say is “stolen” for being located in West Bank.

Video circulated online from the protest appeared to show a female demonstrator, wearing a surgical mask and a red keffiyeh scarf around her shoulders, assaulting a Jewish girl by grabbing her hair from behind as she attempted to move through the crowd to get home. When a group of teenagers near the incident decried the assault, a swarm of hooded protesters confronted them, pushing and squaring shoulders in an apparent effort to dare a response and threaten more force.

Meanwhile, according to recently released New York City Police Department (NYPD) statistics, Jews were targeted in roughly 60% of confirmed hate crimes in the city last month despite comprising approximately 10% of the population.

The city has also experienced a series of recent antisemitic vandalism incidents, including swastika graffiti discovered in Queens parks and on Jewish-owned properties. Last weekend, unknown suspects graffitied some 11 swastikas at Highland Park and Forest Park, just one week after similar incidents were reported in Rego Park and Forest Hills.

A swastika appeared again in New York City last Wednesday. Raised over New York University as a flag designed to counterfeit NYU’s official purple and white standard, the offensive display featured two swastikas flanking the Star of David in a blue and white color palette representing the state of Israel. Historically, similar illustrations and symbols signal belief in antisemitic conspiracies of Jewish power and control.

In recent years, anti-Israel activists at NYU have castigated the university’s academic partnerships with Israel, as well as its efforts to combat antisemitism.

Earlier this week, Park Slope Food Co-op members urged the organization to either cancel the boycott vote entirely or implement confidential voting procedures and additional protections for Jewish members.

“When I joined the Park Slope Food Co-op 15 years ago, antisemitism within its walls was the last thing on my mind,” co-op member Ramon Maislen said in a statement quoted by the Brandeis Center. “Yet here we are in 2026; many of our fellow members, distraught at the war in Gaza, have aligned themselves with a movement where anti-Jewish rhetoric has become routine.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.