ZOA New Mexico, by Lynn Provencio
On Sunday, March 7, the local BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) groups staged a little protest in front of the Albuquerque Midtown Trader Joe’s, telling them to stop selling any Israeli products and telling passers-by not to buy. The Albuquerque Jewish Federation called for a counter-protest, and many people showed up to make a public point of buying Israeli goods at Trader Joe’s. The “boycott” was a miserable failure, since it caused its organizers to look like mean-spirited hate mongers, and put Trader Joe’s and its small stock of Israeli goods on the public map. Lovers of Israel who barely knew there was a Trader Joe’s in the Uptown shopping center now flock to it to seek and buy the Israel-made Feta cheese, cous-cous and crushed garlic that they usually don’t use. Trader Joe’s ran out of cous-cous that day, so great was the demand.
A week later, the BDS people tried again, a few people out with their little table of Israeli samples and their usual apartheid poster. There was no organized counter-protest this week, the BDS effort being so feeble, and the point having been made.
However, since I had been out of town the week before, I decided to stop by Trader Joe’s today and do my part. I gave the BDS people a thank-you flyer, because they have made it so easy and pleasant to support Israel by showing us where Israeli products were sold, and what the products were. I stood behind them with the thank-you poster for a little while, so that fellow shoppers could see my gratitude to the intense people at the miserable little BDS table. Then I went inside to shop.
Shopping turned out the be the more difficult part. Listening to the BDS people, you might think Trader Joe’s was a veritable Zionist den of iniquity, with thousands of Israeli products, all flashing blue and white, and maybe dripping Palestinian blood. After much looking, I couldn’t find any Israeli products at all. However the BDS people said they were there, so they had to be! I found one of the busy clerks…”I saw those people outside, and came in to buy Israeli stuff because of them. But I can’t find any Israeli stuff…” The clerk laughed and took me straight to the three or four Israeli products they sell. She said luckily they had time to restock from last week. I let her know I didn’t live in Albuquerque and wasn’t actually familiar with Trader Joe’s, but had driven in from one of the surrounding towns in order to buy Israeli stuff here. She seemed genuinely flattered and pleased, and said she would let the shift supervisor know. I said that I had also hoped to find some Israeli wines, and some Passover food from Israel, maybe they might stock some of that? She liked the idea and said she would tell her boss about that. I checked out with my Israeli stuff and quite a bit else as well. Ka Ching!
The clerk was perplexed about one thing, that the BDS people outside, having finished for the day, come in to Trader Joe’s to shop. “If they are so angry at us, why do they come in and shop?” I explained that they aren’t actually angry at Trader Joe’s and could really care less about Israeli goods in the store. What they want is their little table and signs outside, for publicity. Their point is to have a public place to say Israel is bad.
Lots of stores in Albuquerque carry Israeli goods, and some carry more than Trader Joe’s. I bet they wish they could be so lucky as to be boycotted…
