Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is being pulled from the shelves of several supermarket chains in New York since the company announced its plans to boycott Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to a report.
Since Ben & Jerry’s announced their plans Monday to boycott “Occupied Palestinian Territory” when its local franchise’s license runs out in December 2022, several supermarket chains that have also announced their plans to start pulling the ice cream company’s products off its shelves in New York, according to World Israel News.
Seasons, an upscale kosher supermarket chain located in New York and New Jersey, sent a message to customers Monday. They said, “Seasons has removed all Ben and Jerry’s products from all its stores as a result of the ice cream maker’s decision to cease sales in parts of Israel. We stand with Israel. Always.”
Morton Williams Supermarkets board of directors met Monday evening, according to the New York Post to discuss and agree to “reduce the Ben & Jerry’s products it sells in its 16 stores by 70 percent.” The board also agreed to stop promoting the ice cream company in the weekly circulars and put the products in the “least desirable locations,” co-owner Avi Kaner told The Post. “You’ll be able to find the product, but you’ll have to look for it,” Kaner said.
Kaner hopes the company’s partial boycott with creating a domino effect to send a “strong message.” He added, “Of all the places in the world to boycott, Ben & Jerry’s has chosen to target the one Jewish nation in the world.”
World Israel News continued:
Others outraged at the anti-Israel message are also thinking in broader terms. In a move that would automatically remove B&J from the shelves of all stores that serve a high percentage of Orthodox clientele, social activists have begun calling KOF-K Kosher to ask that the organization pull its kashruth certification from the ice cream. They are also requesting that other certifications refuse to service Ben and Jerry’s as substitutes.
“Aron’s Kissena Farms in Queens, and Glatt Express Supermarket in Teaneck, N.J., aren’t waiting and announced that they have already removed the ice cream from their shelves in support of the Jewish State,” the report noted. More stores in the New York regions are reportedly also taking the ice cream off the shelves.
“Ben and Jerry’s decision is a shameful surrender to anti-Semitism, to BDS, to all the evil in the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse,” Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said.
“We will not keep quiet. More than 30 states in the United States have laws against surrendering to BDS that have passed in recent years,” he added. “I plan to go one by one and demand that they enforce these laws against Ben & Jerry’s because they will not treat us in this way without encountering a response.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.