The East End Food Co-op union is pushing for a vote on whether the co-op should stop stocking Israeli products.
While the Co-ops Against Genocide campaign has identified just six Israeli-sourced products on co-op shelves, including tahini, Dead Sea bath salts, gluten-free ice cream cones, an olive oil branded as “Extra Peaceful,” and off-season bell peppers, organizers believe a decision to boycott Israeli products would be an important symbolic move that might prompt other co-ops to do the same.
“We’re hoping that this can cause a ripple effect with other co-ops and other retail stores to really look into your products and see where they come from,” shop steward Fritz Geist tells Pittsburgh City Paper.
A statement on the co-op’s website says the organization “will create … [a]n ethical and resilient food infrastructure.” Campaign organizers argue that this principle is compromised by selling Israeli products.
Major human rights organizations, in Israel and worldwide, have called the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza a “genocide” and characterize Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza as “apartheid.”
In July 2024, the co-op union, UE Local 667, voted to endorse the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a global nonviolent protest effort to apply economic pressure on Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, grant full equality to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and promote a right of return for Palestinian refugees.
The Co-ops Against Genocide campaign hopes to turn their endorsement into policy by submitting a petition to the East End Food Co-op Board of Directors requesting that the membership be allowed to vote on the question of a boycott of Israeli goods.
Co-op bylaws specify that members (also called member-owners) may call for a member-wide meeting, which can include a referendum vote, by gathering at least 500 member signatures. As of this summer, the co-op has more than 17,000 active member-owners, and the petition has gathered more than 300 signatures. Geist said that they hope that the petition and any subsequent vote on the issue will empower members to take a more active role in the co-op’s governance.
The campaign has elicited a “very mixed reaction so far” from co-op customers and members, according to Geist.
“So many people are thankful, and they’re happy to see that kind of exposure” for the pro-Palestinian cause, Geist says. “It kind of creates more solidarity, more community. I think a lot more people feel comfortable shopping at the co-op, honestly, because they feel like their workers are making a difference.”
Some self-identified pro-Israel co-op members disagree, telling the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle that they feel offended by co-op workers wearing symbols of Palestinian liberation at work and have encouraged others not to patronize the store.
Geist says some co-op customers have responded in negative ways to union members’ pro-Palestine T-shirts and pins, including by offering what they consider to be bigoted opinions about Palestinians.
While working as a cashier, Geist was wearing a t-shirt that said “Palestine will be free.” They say a customer came through their line and said, “I dated a Middle Eastern person once, and they don’t like women.” Geist says that union members try to view these conversations as opportunities to educate people and challenge prejudice.
This summer, opposition to the petition took on a darker tone, however, when individuals opposed to the union’s efforts began calling for violence toward a union organizer.
Iris Powell, a member of the union’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, has received public death threats as a result of their participation in the campaign. This summer, stickers were posted in the Wilkinsburg area featuring a picture of Powell taken without their knowledge and the caption: “End Antisemtism [sic]: Kill Your Local Racist.” Union members have made an effort to remove the stickers and have issued a statement condemning the threats.
“It’s scary. It’s weird. It’s disappointing. It’s frustrating,” Powell says of the experience. They do not plan to abandon their solidarity efforts.
Powell noted, however, that a boycott of Israeli products would be unprecedented.
“One thing that we are up against in terms of the boycott is that the East End Food Co-op hasn’t participated in any kind of boycott before,” Powell says.
The East End Co-op Board of Directors did not respond to a request for comment. A board member told The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle in September 2024 that the board is not interested in taking a stance on world affairs.
General Manager Tyler Kulp told the Chronicle in an email that “our mission is to serve the local community, regardless of identity or affiliation. The conflict between Israel and Palestine has been considered by the board and management and while we find violence and suffering reprehensible, as a business EEFC has purposely refrained from supporting or denouncing requests to boycott Israeli products.”
The union’s Palestine Solidarity Committee hopes to be able to present their petition to the board as soon as this fall.
“I think that, overall, this initiative is worth it, because it’s going back to our union’s, and all unions’, main mantra, which is that an injury to one is an injury to all,” Geist says. “Thinking about that from the perspective of workers in Palestine, who are being stripped of everything and being denied their humanity, means we need to show up for them and support them like we would any other union member in our shop or in someone else’s shop.”
Weather and capacity permitting, Co-ops Against Genocide petitioners will be collecting member signatures outside of the East End Food Co-op on Wednesday mornings (approximately 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.) throughout August.
This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2025.
