Washington Jewish Week Buy Israel Week : Page 2
BuyIsraelWeek e Power of the “Buycott” FREE Children’s Books Build a STRONG JEWISH FUTURE Efforts to combat delegitimization of Israel send “economic, psychological and political” messages By Stewart Ain Special to the WJW From boycott to “buycott.” In the latest effort to counter continuing efforts to delegitimize Israel on the world stage, a Buy Israel Week campaign will be held here Nov. 28 through Dec. 4 featuring discount coupons from more than 100 local merchants as well as from Israeli retailers themselves. Frances Zelazny, a New York marketer who came up with the idea, said Buy Israel Week is an integrated online and print effort that is being co-sponsored by nine Jewish newspapers throughout the country, includ-ing the New York Jewish Week. The coupons will be found online at buyisraelweek.com. She said she has been concerned not only by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, but more re-cently by the effort of the Palestinians to gain United Nations membership as a means to further delegitimize Israel. “This is a way to counter that by pushing not just Israel’s political but commercial as-pects — highlighting its food, high-tech and other innovations,” she said. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chair-man of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, has embraced the initiative because he said it “gives people another avenue to express their support for Israel and counter the increasing effort to boycott Israeli products. And it is sending various messages — economic, psy-chological and political.” Although the BDS movement has not gained as much traction in the United States as it has in Europe, Hoenlein said “we have seen manifestations of it here. There are in-creasing voices for BDS activities in church groups and by academic and cultural figures. … We are sending the biggest names in Hol-lywood to Israel to let them talk about the reality of what they see in order to counter the claims that Israel is an apartheid state.” Just last month, a group of 75 New York University faculty members signed a letter asking that TIAA-CREF, a financial services organization, divest itself from the occupa-tion in Israel, according to Hindy Poupko, executive director of the Council of Young Jewish Presidents. She said her group, which represents more than 25 young leadership groups in New York, “clearly supports the Buy Israel Week initiative because we view it as positive PR for Israel. It is important for Americans and in particular New York consumers to under-stand the variety of contributions Israel has made in every possible field. … In an age when there are almost daily calls for a boy-cott of Israeli products, it is critical we go out there and demonstrate that there is a strong and growing market for Israeli products.” Poupko pointed out that attempts to boy-cott Ahava products sold in Ricky’s NYC stores earlier this year was met with a “buy-cott” and that since then “the sale of Ahava products in Ricky’s stores have soared.” “That speaks to the power of focusing our efforts to buy Israeli products at least one week a year, and hopefully consumers will enjoy the products enough to make them part of their everyday purchasing patterns,” she added. Hoenlein noted that not only will Buy Is-rael Week counter boycott efforts but it will “make people aware” of the Israeli products that are out there and encourage stores to carry them. Martin Raffel, project director of the Israel Action Network, an initiative to mobilize the North American Jewish community to re-spond to the assault on Israel’s legitimacy, said Buy Israel Week is a good effort because “it supports the Israeli economy and that sends the right kind of message. And be-cause it can be sent across the Internet, it has more of an impact.” He added that such efforts have been held in other parts of the country in recent years. One of them is the buyisraelgoods.org web-site established about 10 years ago to show-case different Israeli products and services. (See story on the site’s founder on page (B13). The America-Israel Chamber of Commerce in Chicago created it as a free service, accord-ing to its executive director, Michael Schmitt. StandWithUs, a group that supports pro-Israel education worldwide, partnered with the chamber last year. “They had a wonderful website and we had a wonderful global campaign,” said Roz Rothstein, the group’s chief executive officer. She said the groups have held two cam-paigns, both on days on which Israeli prod-ucts had been targeted for a boycott. “We were very successful — people bought out the shelves of Israeli goods in cities around the world,” she said. Even though boycott efforts have failed, Rothstein said she is still disturbed by the rhetoric the boycott groups use against Israel. “Everyone should be troubled by these people who are trying to collectively punish the citizens of Israel,” she said. “A lot of them are propagandists and anti-Semites who have launched a movement that is poisonous and who use classical anti-Semitic rhetoric that needs to be condemned.” Donate Now Give a gift of $18 and help us grow Sifriyat Pijama in Israel. Go to www.buyisraelweek.com. To learn more about PJ Library and to sign up to receive FREE Jewish children’s books, go to www.pjlibrary.org/communities. Each month Sifriyat Pijama reaches more than 120,000 Israeli preschool children. PJ Library reaches 85,000 Jewish children and their families throughout North America. The simple gift of children’s books is building families’ connections to Jewish culture, heritage and tradition in simple, yet powerful ways. Yet, there are thousands of children waiting. PJ Library and Sifriyat Pijama are programs of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation in partnership with Israel's Ministry of Education, local Jewish communities and generous donors. B2 November 17, 2011 • Washington Jewish Week Buy Israel Week
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