In US, Jews get their licks in on Ben & Jerry’s move
Kosher supermarkets are rethinking their inventory. Politicians are emptying their freezers.
The reactions were all part of the firestorm that quirky icecream manufacturer Ben & Jerry’s set off Monday morning with its announcement that it would no longer sell ice cream in “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The Vermont-based company, founded by two Jews and long known for its left-leaning politics, had gone dark on social media for two months since the recent outbreak of violence in Israel and Gaza. The announcement broke that silence, simultaneously infuriating Israel advocates who said the decision was an unfair attack on Israel while disappointing pro-Palestinian advocates who said the company should have gone farther.
Israeli politicians, supermarkets in the US, various pundits and even Ben & Jerry’s current Israeli licensee went after the ice-cream maker and its corporate parent, the British multinational Unilever, for its statement. (The company’s Jewish founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, no longer manage the brand but have often used their frozen treats to push social-justice causes.)
American Jewish groups offered varied responses to the company’s scoop that mapped to their political orientation.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the left-leaning Israel advocacy group J Street, said Ben & Jerry’s was drawing “a principled and rational distinction between commercial transactions in the State of Israel & those in the territory it occupies” and said the term “antisemitism” did not apply to the company’s actions.
Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the left-wing New Israel Fund, said Ben & Jerry’s was not being antisemitic in exiting “occupied Palestinian territory” because “these lands are not sovereign Israel.”
“Attacking people who try and distinguish between sovereign
and non-sovereign Israel by calling them antisemitic is to evade a matter of fact, abuse the meaning of ‘antisemitism’ and ultimately gaslight those who would try and work towards a future of equality and justice for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” Sokatch said in a statement.
The Anti-Defamation League, a centrist group, said it was “disappointed” by the move, adding, “You can disagree with policies without feeding into dangerous campaigns that seek to undermine Israel.”
And the right-wing Zionist Organization of America called for a boycott of the ice cream, proclaiming that Ben & Jerry’s is “bad for your moral and physical health.” The call was echoed by others, such as the Jewish conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who said he would stop eating the brand.
Kosher food purveyors are considering practical changes.
Glatt Express Supermarket, a kosher grocery store in Teaneck, New Jersey, announced via Facebook that it would no longer carry Ben & Jerry’s products following the company’s announcement.
“Due to the recent actions by Ben & Jerry’s, Glatt Express will no longer be carrying Ben and Jerry’s products. Am Yisroel
Chai,” the store wrote in a post.
Aron’s Kissena Farms, a kosher market in Queens, made the same decision. The market “has removed all of the Ben & Jerry’s products in the Freezers, and will no longer sell any and all Ben & Jerry products effective immediately,” the store wrote on Facebook. “Aron’s Kissena Farms stands with the state of Israel.”
Glatt Express did not immediately respond to a request for comment; nor did Morton Williams, the New York-based grocery chain whose co-owner, Avi Kaner, also tweeted at Ben & Jerry’s on Monday. His 16-store chain would be meeting to discuss “ending sales of your ice cream in our supermarket chain,” Kaner wrote.
Access to Ben & Jerry’s could be constrained another way: A few figures in the American Jewish right wing also began a social-media push to convince kosher certifier KOF-K to remove Ben & Jerry’s kosher certification. (JTA)