Rabbi Evan Goodman and Rabbi Eric Weiss sent e-mails to Rainbow, critical of the decision by at least two of the store’s departments to cease stocking Israeli goods and angered by Rainbow’s continuing strategy of denying an Israeli boycott exists.
“There is no boycott at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative against Israeli products. At no time did a boycott of Israeli products come up for a vote by the Membership. Our policy requires 51 percent of the membership to approve a boycott,” reads a statement e-mailed en masse to Rainbow shoppers and posted on the store’s Web site — www.rainbow.coop
Yet Scott Bradley, a member of the store’s public relations committee, told the Bulletin last week that Rainbow’s packaged- and bulk-goods departments ceased stocking Israeli goods about a year ago in a gesture of support for the Palestinians.
Goodman said the store’s decision to placate Israel supporters by redefining the word boycott was an insult.
“It seems like they’re hiding behind the statement that there is no boycott. If it truly is just a handful of people within the store who have these views and promote them, then the store needs to recognize how that affects the entire image of Rainbow Cooperative,” said Goodman, spiritual leader at San Francisco’s Congregation Beth Israel-Judea.
“They’re not fooling anyone, and everyone I know who received the mass-mailing with the statement ‘There is no boycott’ thought it was a joke.”
An editorial in Tuesday’s San Francisco Chronicle lambasted Rainbow for “Some of the best definition-parsing since Bill Clinton.”
Bradley did not return calls, and his voicemail referred the press to the store’s statement, noting that he “would not comment further.” He did, however, tell the Chronicle that the store was receiving hundreds and hundreds of calls and e-mails with “99 percent” of one-day’s callers informing him they’d no longer patronize the store.
Other Rainbow employees refused to comment, immediately connecting the Bulletin to a newly established voicemail line in which Bradley reads the store’s statement.
The Jewish Community Relations Council, which last week requested a meeting with store employees, has not heard back from Rainbow’s PR committee; the store’s packaged-goods department denied the meeting request.
Weiss, the co-director of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center, said the store’s refusal thus far to meet with the JCRC is disturbing, given that Rainbow’s statement says: “It is dialogue that ultimately will provide the avenue for resolution of the difficult and complex issues of the Middle East.”
Said Weiss: “I don’t think they realize that their lack of willingness to heal a rift creates its own confusion and hurt. And in the face of that people will move apart rather than come together.”
Weiss, who once frequented Rainbow, now shops at other community-based stores.
“I think they’re allowing what could have been the equivalent of a scrape on the knee to fester into a much deeper wound. Again, I know the Jewish community, without any question, is willing to come forward in a very gracious way.”
JCRC officials said they requested on Monday a meeting with the store’s board of directors.
Yitzhak Santis, the JCRC’s Mideast affairs director, said a “record” number of disgruntled letters, e-mails and calls have come his way, with “scores and scores” of people pledging to avoid Rainbow Grocery.
“If they refuse to meet with us, we would very much encourage members of the Jewish community and our friends to continue to send a strong message to Rainbow about their displeasure over this policy,” Santis said.
The current furor was ignited when San Francisco lawyer Ian Zimmerman wrote a widely circulated e-mail last week urging Israel supporters to boycott Rainbow. Zimmerman and 15 other former Rainbow shoppers met Tuesday and decided they will picket outside the store in “the foreseeable future.”
Rabbi Yoel Kahn said the store has not returned his calls, and he would be glad to participate in any future demonstrations.
The store’s position “gives legitimacy to intolerant ideas that can’t be allowed to grow,” said Kahn, the director of curriculum for the Synagogue 2000 institute.
Although he avoids shopping at the store himself, Goodman said that while he tells his congregants about the situation, he would not push his opinions about Rainbow on them and wants them to make up their own minds.
“I’m trying to give people in my congregation and in the community information about what’s going on,” he said.
“They shouldn’t believe there’s no boycott because there is.”