The other day, I was on the phone with my mother. She was telling me how she recently went out to buy a new gas canister for our SodaStream machine, a staple in the Orzy households of Toronto, Ottawa and Israel. She went down to the same nearby shop where she’s been getting the canisters for years.
However, this visit was a bit different. My mother had decided to thank the store’s owner, Kym, for continuing to carry SodaStream products. As my mother put it, “She was grateful for the support but said it didn’t come without problems, as she had recently been visited by many BDS supporters who insisted that she no longer carry this product. Kym refused and now the BDS supporters have called for a boycott of her store.”
Kym, in this sense, has become an accidental anti-BDS warrior, forced to defend her choice to sell a specific product to people who falsely claim human rights violations against the country where the product is made, but who, in any event, direct their altruistic venom only at Israel. Kym knows about the history of SodaStream and its recent move out of the West Bank, and the subsequent loss of many Palestinian jobs. While she has continued to stand up against these angry pro-BDS mobs, she is frustrated with their relentless attacks and the boycott they are now imposing on her store.
So what does a polite, South African Jewish mother of two former IDF soldiers do when she hears this? She runs home and writes a well-worded email to her family and friends informing them of this injustice, asking them to start buycotting Kym’s store.
READ: BDS OR ACADEMIC FREEDOM – WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Within a very short amount of time, friends from all over were frequenting Kym’s store to buy her products. Friends who had never even heard of SodaStream before are now pumping their own machines inside their homes. It did not take much to help Kym overcome BDS, and it would not require much to help other store owners who face similar persecution.
You do not need to be confronted with angry student protesters to be on the front lines of the battle against BDS. You simply need to stand up to injustice wherever you find it in your own way. As someone who has been very involved in the fight against BDS on campus, I know how uncomfortable that can be for the pro-Israel community – and not only for students. For anyone involved, be it through your campus club, place of work, or even a friend’s buycott initiative, you deserve a big thank you. For those of you who aren’t involved yet, for whatever reason, I invite you to join us.
I’m not asking you to yell back at the BDS crowds, nor am I asking you to make some sort of drastic life change. I only want you to do what I don’t do enough of: listen to my mother and follow her example.
