Anti-Israel De-shelving Operation at Trader Joes Fizzles

Cross-posted by Gary Fouse
fousesquawk





I am happy to post this article from the Jewish Journal on the attempt by a San Jose activist group to organize a de-shelving operation at Trader Joe's stores selling Israeli products. Kudos to Trader Joes for standing up to these yahoos. According to the article below, the whole operation was a big dud.

Kudos also to those readers who picked up on the issue and spread the word. The power of the blogosphere should not be underestimated.I am also attaching a reader comment on my original thread from a Trader Joes worker.

Finally, I deleted a comment from a woman believed to be part of the de-shelving movement not because I disagreed with it, rather because it was little more than talking points propaganda. She did acknowledge her disappointment and stated that the next step would be to boycott Trader Joes. If that ever gets off the ground, I will be happy to let my readers know so that Trader Joes can experience another surge in sales.

Anti-Israel Group Boycotts Trader Joe’s
By Lilly Fowler and Tom Tugend
Jewish Journal


By Lilly Fowler and Tom Tugend

Although “World Refugee Day,” the boycott of Trader Joe’s planned by the anti-Israel group “Don’t Buy into Apartheid,” came and went on Saturday, June 20, with no apparent incidents in Los Angeles, other cities in California did witness protesters invade the popular supermarket chain.

Kate Raphael, one of the organizers of the event, said she joined approximately 20 others as they marched into a Trader Joe’s store in Oakland, Calif., passing out hundreds of leaflets, which condemned Israel’s actions, while taking Israeli products off the shelves. Similar demonstrations happened in San Francisco and Sacramento.

In Los Angeles however, the only unusual activity reported was that of local patrons walking into the national food chain to ask to buy Israeli products in specific.

E-mails calling for a response to the boycott had circulated virally in the week prior throughout the Jewish community, as well as on Facebook, asking people to patronize the store in defiance of the boycott and in support of the Jewish State. Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, said that her pro-Israel organization had also urged supporters across the United States and elsewhere to go into Trader Joe’s and other markets to purchase Israeli goods.

Despite the Jewish backlash, Raphael declared the “Don’t Buy into Apartheid” demonstrations a success.

“I think overall the response by customers was quite positive,” Raphael said, when describing the reaction to her group and their effort to alert customers to what they see as Trader Joe’s unfair policy: stocking Israeli products, while carrying no Palestinian goods.

She said while some customers argued with her and other demonstrators, others simply thanked them for the information. The response on the part of Trader Joe’s staff was equally wide-ranging.

The manager of the Oakland store informed the group that they would not stop carrying Israeli products until a majority of their customers stopped buying them.

But Alison Mochizuki, a spokesperson for Trader Joe’s more than 300 stores, reiterated the privately owned chain’s stance.

“Trader Joe’s will not be used as a political tool, and we will not remove any products under pressure from any group. We believe our customers are smart and capable enough to make their own choices,” she said.

Raphael said her organization will be releasing a press release and pictures of the boycott on Monday, June 22.

“Don’t Buy into Apartheid,” is part of the “Global BDS Movement,” or “Boycott Divestment Sanctions Campaign,” and aims to “oppose Israeli occupation, apartheid, violence, and land theft and to support equality and justice for all, including the Palestinian people.”

StandWithUs has called the campaign “one-sided” and has accused the organization of undermining the Middle East peace process.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At June 21, 2009 7:31 PM , Anonymous said...
HI! I WORK FOR TRADER JOE'S AND I JUST WANTED TO THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR NEGATIVE PUBLICITY! WE ARE SO BUSY MORE THAN EVER! OUR TJ'S DOES OVER $100,000 A DAY AND WE ARE BREAKING ARE YTD (YEAR TO DATE) DOLLAR AMOUNTS WHICH MEANS WE HAVE TO ORDER ALOT MORE ISRALI PRODUCTS THAT ARE FLYING OFF THE SHELVES SO YOU ARE DOING THEM A BIG FAVOR AS WELL AS OUR EMPLOYEE'S WE HAVE TO WORK OVER TIME BECAUSE OF OUR HIGH VOLUME SALES THANKS TO YOU! YOUR AWESOME!! PLEASE KEEP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING! WE ARE MAKING SO MUCH MONEY AND WE OWE ALL TO YOU!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neda: The Voice of the Iranian People

by Barbara W. Sowell at Faultline USA

By now the videos of Neda’s death have spread far and wide across the world making her the symbol of the voice of the Iranian People.

Today is Father’s Day. No father should have to live to witness the death of a beloved child.

While glued to Twitter early yesterday afternoon I made the mistake of clicking on the link to the close-up, gruesome, and very graphic YouTube video of Neda’s death. The image of her beautiful eyes in the last moment of her life seared itself into my soul. I could not shake her dying image from my mind and just prayed all day for her family.

By nighttime the new Twitter hashtag: #Neda was burning up the internet with Tweets and RT’s.

RT Woman killed in front of her father "ندا (#Neda) which means voice or call in Farsi. She's the voice of the people a call to freedom"

4 Neda, girl murdered in Iran on film: Eternal rest grant unto her O Lord & let perpetual light shine uponher. #neda

Read the moving account from the doctor who tried to save her from BreakForNews with graphic still shots taken from the video.

Technorati Tags: hashtags,hashtag,Twitter,Neda,Iran,Iranelection,Tehran

Remembrances of a Lithuanian Jew

Cross-posted by Gary Fouse
fousesquawk



Memorial in Israel to a Lithuanian shtetl (Anikst)


Back in the 1990s, I was researching my first book on the languages of the former Soviet republics, which included a chapter on the Soviet Jews. In Rockville, Maryland, I met the acquaintance of a remarkable woman named Basya Shadevichene, a Lithuanian Jew who had survived German occupation during World War II. Her story is so moving that I would like to repeat it here.

First, I should supply a little background. When the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia after a brief period of independence, many viewed their Jewish populations, rightfully or wrongfully, as Soviet supporters. Thus, when the Germans occupied those states during World War II, Jewish residents were subject to acts of murder by Baltic nationalists-even before the Germans instigated their own "solution to the Jewish problem". It is a complicated and dark chapter in the history of the Baltic states.

The reader will also note a lot of reference to language(s) in the text since this was the focus of the book.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"I was born in 1921 in the Ukraine. My mother was Ukrainian, and my father Lithuanian. Within a couple of months of my birth, my family moved to Lithuania, where I grew up. The language that we spoke at home was Yiddish, which my mother spoke with a Ukrainian accent.

At the age of 6, I began attending a Jewish public school in which the language of instruction was Yiddish. At this school, we also studied in Lithuanian and Hebrew. Subsequently, I attended gymnasium.

At the age of 13, my parents took me to Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania since Vilnius was occupied by Poland. In Kaunas, I attended a Hebrew gymnasium. All of the subjects were taught in Hebrew except Lithuanian and German classes. later, I had to switch to a less expensive gymnasium because my family's economic situation was very bad. Both of my parents were tailors, and in those days, people would sew one suit, wear it for twenty years and pass it on to their sons. So, as you can see, business was not very good.

In 1937 I graduated from the gymnasium but couldn't receive the diploma due to some unpaid tuition. I was able to begin at Kaunas University on a provisional basis where I studied philology (German, Latin and Greek).

After the Soviets occupied eastern Poland in 1939, they returned Vilnius to Lithuania. Therefore, many of the faculty and students at Kaunas University moved to the University of Vilnius. In Vilnius, I was able to get a job teaching Lithuanian to Polish-speaking children. At the same time, I was attending a Hebrew teachers academy from which I graduated. My dream was to be a teacher in a Hebrew school.

When the USSR took over Lithuania in 1940, all Jewish institutions were closed. Schools, yeshivas, gymnasiums, teachers' academies, libraries and synagogues. Everything.

When the Germans invaded Lithuania as part of the USSR, we were living in a shtetl (village occupied principally by Jews). When we heard the news, I was with my sister on a trip to a lake. The Germans overran Lithuania so fast that we couldn't return to our shtetl, and all we could do was join the thousands of people fleeing. The roads were choked with people in their wagons, on foot or bicycle, and the German planes were bombing us and shooting at us from very low in the sky. My sister and I were the only members of our family to survive. I lost my parents and brother during the German occupation.

My sister and I were able to get out of Lithuania and ended up in Russia. Eventually, I heard about a Lithuanian division being formed in Russia to fight with the Soviet Army against the Nazis. At that time, I was teaching in a middle school, but I left my job and walked three days in the bitter cold to Morshansk, from where I was taken to Gorky. This trip took almost a day. I rode on an open train car until I reached the division which I joined as an interpreter. By then, I knew Yiddish, Lithuanian, Hebrew, German and Russian. In June 1944, I arrived back in Lithuania with my division. I received many medals from the Soviet Government for my wartime service. I was released from the army at the end of 1946.

When I returned to my shtetl in 1944, I couldn't find a single Jew. I lost my mother, father, brother, two uncles and an aunt, along with their families. Twelve of them in all had been killed. A Polish woman, who was a former neighbor in my shtetl, had kept a few photographs, one of which was of my mother. I loved my mother very much, and today, this photograph is hanging in my bedroom across from my bed. I talk to her every day when I get up and before I go to bed.

All of the Jewish people in my shtetl and throughout Lithuania were killed, a total of about 200,000 according to the Lithuanian newspapers. Between my shtetl and that of my husband, I saw two large pits where Jews had been pushed in alive and executed. One pit had contained 2,000 women, the other 4,000 men. Eventually, Jewish survivors built a fence around the pits and erected two large stone monuments on which was written: 'Here lie 2,000 Jewish women and 4,000 Jewish men who were killed by the German fascists and Lithuanian nationalists' We wanted to inscribe the same text in Yiddish but could not get permission from the local authorities.

After the war, the Soviets refused to allow Yiddish or Hebrew schools. People who wanted to study either language were considered 'Zionists' and subject to deportation. There was an informal Jewish theatre in Vilnius, but it had to operate in a discreet manner. The Yiddish-speaking population has grown older, and many have died. The younger generation of Jewish people have grown up speaking mostly Lithuanian and Russian.

The Yiddish language is still an international language for Jews around the world. In Israel, there are many elderly Yiddish-speaking people. In answer to your question, Yiddish will not die as long as the Jewish nation survives. It will continue to be an international language for Jews."

Ms Basya Shadevichene
Rockville, Md
July 26, 1996

from: The Languages of the Former Soviet Republics-Their History and Development
by Gary Fouse
University Press of America, 2000
pp 379-381

Into the Maelstrom: Closer and closer

A note from Radarsite: Considering the perilous situations developing today, June 19, 2009, in both Iran and with North Korea, this two-month old article seems even more meaningful. What will this fateful weekend bring? Will our weak-kneed President continue his course of answering Iran's and North Korea's escalating challenges and provocations with noncommittal and toothless rhetoric? Will he unequivocally condemn the vicious mullahs and support the revolution? Will he give the order to our Navy to intercept and board that suspicious North Korean vessel headed toward Singapore?

Take heed, America, this is how our sworn enemies have answered our Chamberlainesque appeasement-oriented President's peace feelers -- with contempt and escalation. This is the maelstrom toward which we are headed, the maelstrom that you have created. God help us all. - rg

-----------------------------------------------------

Can't you feel it? Events are moving faster and faster now. We're sailing into the whirlpool. Threats which once seemed faraway and merely hypothetical are now growing exponentially, swirling around us, drawing us ever closer into the vortex. And we seem helpless. We procrastinate and equivocate. We can't make up our minds. We're lost in a hopeless labyrinth of ambiguities and euphemisms.

Meanwhile, circling us like sharks sensing blood, our enemies are sensing our weakness. Ahmadinejad steps up his threatening rhetoric: They will become nuclear, they will have their bomb. The UN and NATO are either anti-American or useless. The hopelessly conflicted IAEA is impotent: pro-Muslim Al Baradi faults the West and sides with Iran. Kim Jong Ill drops out of the non-proliferation talks and give the rest of the world the finger. Russia and China sense their main chance and are eagerly building up their arsenals. All of the petty potentates are rattling their sabers. The ragtag Somali pirates, the motley teenage Al-Shabaab, are calling our bluff and threatening revenge. The reinvigorated Taliban is busy with their bloody Reconquista of Afghanistan. The crises are converging. Can't you feel it?

Alas, our captain and crew are woefully inexperienced and morally conflicted and the helmsman has lost his grip on the wheel. Are we really doomed to founder? Where is that brave pilot to guide us through this dark night and bring us into safe harbor? Where is that barely remembered voice of manliness and courage? Who will replace the fallen helmsman before it is too late?

We call out but no one answers. Are we really all alone? Abandoned by an incompetent captain and a useless crew? Are we, the passengers, our only hope of salvation? To save our great ship must we all become mutineers?

The great whirlpool is drawing us steadily into its deadly grasp. Soon our decisions will be made for us by forces beyond our control. Our enemies grow more emboldened while our nominal allies vacillate or turn their backs. Terror groups will become nuclear. Israel will be crippled or annihilated. North Korea will develop long range nuclear capability and blackmail the world. Russia and China will thwart us at every turn. Western Europe will fall to the Muslim menace and sharia law will be incorporated into our legal system. Our street gangs will run rampant and our borders will remain porous. Americanism will become a lost idea.

Is this how our great ship will founder? Are we truly helpless in the maelstrom? Someone please tell me I'm just being melodramatic, that things aren't as perilous as they seem, that the maelstrom is nothing but an overblown metafor. That we'll pull through somehow, we always do.

Someone?
Anyone?

The Iranians and Their Government

Cross-posted by Gary Fouse
fousesquawk



The Iranian "election" -and the winner is.......
(Tip of the hat to the great Don Martin)


I must confess I have very mixed reactions to the happenings in Iran over the "re-election" of Ahmadinejad. That's because I vividly remember the hostage crisis thirty years ago, when our diplomats were held under threat of trial and execution while a feckless president named Jimmy Carter wrung his hands in helplessness. Like most Americans, I was outraged. I could not understand why we did not go to war and crush Iran. Yes, it would have probably meant the deaths of most if not all of the hostages, but America would not have been humiliated by a third-rate country run by fanatical mullahs.

I also remember the behavior of some Iranians living in the US at the time, especially the so-called Iranian students, many of whom supported the revolution. I was stationed with DEA in Los Angeles at the time and recall that we had a rash of heroin and hashish smuggling cases involving young Iranians whose funding for their stay in America had been cut off. In one case, we arrested several Iranians connected with the seizure of hash concealed in framed pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeini. I remember the satisfaction I felt as I tore apart the portraits to remove the drugs in front of the prisoners, who gritted their teeth in silent rage.

I also remember the day shortly after our diplomats had been taken hostage that hundreds of Iranians decided to march through the streets of Los Angeles in support of the Ayatollah. They had been denied a permit but chose to march anyway. We knew there was going to be violence, and I have to admit, a couple of my colleagues and I were tempted to take the day off and go "kick some ass". Fortunately, we decided not to put our jobs on the line and we stayed put. As it was, hundreds of counter-demonstrators, outraged Americans, lined the streets and jeered the marchers. The police were out in force, but could not prevent the melee that ensued as the Iranians were spit upon and attacked by the counter-protesters. A lot of Iranians were beaten up that day including women. Many others were arrested along with members of the Jewish Defense League and their leader, Irv Rubin, who were right in the thick of it. (I was not an admirer of Irv Rubin.)

How did I feel about what happened? I was giddy with joy.

Suffice to say, I did not care much for Iranians in those days, and that is putting it mildly.

I also cheered when Iraq, under Saddam Hussein launched a war against Iran. I knew Iraq under Saddam was no ideal nation, but they were fighting our enemy, and so I thought it was right that the US gave support to Saddam in that instance.

Was I wrong to feel those sentiments? I honestly don't know. I do know, however, that I don't feel those sentiments now. As I have told my Iranian friends (Yes, I have a few), eventually, one needs to let go of those kinds of feelings. (Of course, I am much more aware now of the numbers of Iranians I meet who are refugees from the present regime.) So, was it racism on my part? No-it was wounded national pride. I am a nationalist, and I don't like to see my country humiliated.

But how am I supposed to feel now as we witness a mass wave of rejection on the part of so many thousands of young Iranians toward their despicable government? Again, I have mixed feelings. For many years now, I have refused to feel bad for the Iranian people living under such a backward government. After all, they chose that government, didn't they? They threw out the Shah, brought in the Islamic Republic and shouted, "Death to America", so it was my feeling that they had the government they deserved. I was more concerned with the dangers that government posed (and poses) to the West and Israel.

However, I have to take into account that Iran is a young country in demographics. Most of its people were either very young or not yet born in 1979. They see the freedoms that the West enjoys and they want to join in. Maybe they have been swept up in the world-wide Obamamania and they want to join in that as well, who knows?

At any rate, it is no longer 1979; it is 2009, and things are stirring in Iran. What should be the response of the Obama administration? The President is choosing his words carefully-as he should. Obviously, while he supports the idea of more freedom in Iran, the US doesn't want to be seen as propping up the opposition. That would be counter-productive. Are we working behind the scenes to undermine the Iranian government? Hard to say with this administration, but I hope we are. If this government can fall without us or Israel having to go to war, the whole world will be better off.

I have to confess, I still am cynical when I hear American politicians pander about the "Iranian people having the democracy they so richly deserve", but hopefully, there will be another Iranian revolution- as peaceful as possible. If the Iranian people can somehow remove this odious regime and restore Iran to a positive position in that volatile part of the world, I will tip my hat to them.

So there is my confession. The statute of limitations is in effect.

Flight 93 Blogburst: False AP report: Obama did NOT say that Iran must respect voters' choice

by Findalis

Obama's comments were mushy, yes, but at least he said the most important thing, according to AP:

He said it's up to Iran to determine its own leaders but that the country must respect voters' choice.

Why then have reputable people continued to pass harsh judgment? And why would AP paraphrase what would have been Obama’s key statement?

Turns out Obama said no such thing. What he actually said is that the VOICES of the Iranian people should be heard and respected, not their votes:

And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.

This is consistent with the rest of Obama's remarks. He never said a word about respecting votes. Obama did mention "the democratic process," but far from saying anything about this process having to meet any standards of integrity, he instead implied strongly that he will accept whatever result the "process" followed by the Mullahs produces:

We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between our two countries, and we’ll see where it takes us. But even as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we’ve seen on the television over the last few days.

The only operative concerns that he mentions are for: "free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent." When he talks about the "democratic process" going forward, all he urges is that the process be peaceful and that dissent be allowed. He says nothing about the process being honest:

...there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed. And I think it’s important that, moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views.

It is no accident that Obama ended with the statement that AP paraphrased so egregiously (equating his call for bloodless suppression with a demand for legitimate elections). This was his theme throughout. He views the honesty of Iran's democratic process as something to be judged by the mullahs, who he clearly accepts to be the sovereign power, regardless of the merits of competing claims.

AP covers its tracks, just like they did with the Flight 93 memorial

AP's fraudulent report about Obama demanding respect for voters' choice was the primary print report on Obama's comments. Now that it has already misled millions of people, AP has covered its tracks by filing an update that overwrites the errant statement. This is what AP does when it gets caught putting out misinformation. To avoid issuing a correction, they flush the misleading story down the memory hole by using the same url for a completely different story. (Google only finds AP's original article still posted at Fox News.)

AP did the same thing last year after it was taken to task for failing to check the most basic facts in a story about the controversy over possible Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial. Ramesh Santanam reported a number of conflicting factual assertions, like the 44 blocks:

Opponents also claim there is a plan to have 44 glass blocks, for the 40 victims and four hijackers, in the design.

"That's an absolute, unequivocal fabrication that is being portrayed as fact," said Edward Felt's brother, Gordon Felt, president of Families of Flight 93. "It's misleading and helps drive the conspiracy theory."

When it was pointed out that Santanam could have found the four extra blocks just by opening up the design drawings and counting, AP quickly filed a completely different story (about fundraising for the memorial), under the same url.

It's not that there is anything inherently wrong with AP using subject feeds that automatically update with their latest offering. It is that AP is systematically using this system to dodge corrections. This is actually their official policy:

For corrections on live, online stories, we overwrite the previous version. We send separate corrective stories online as warranted.

Except AP virtually never issue corrective stories, for the simple reason that AP has no established correction procedure. They just do the overwrite thing and say "too bad."

Well this time the overwrite thing is not good enough.

Demand a corrective story about AP's false paraphrase of Obama's words

Associated Press obviously understands the importance of Obama saying that Iran must respect voters' choice or they wouldn't have bothered to pretend that he said it when he didn't. They don't just fail to mention Obama's glaring omission on this crucial point, but actually tell the public via false paraphrase that he did say what he glaringly omitted. This cannot stand. Faced with our new president's key statement on a historic crisis, AP reports a photo negative of what Obama actually said.

There may be no established procedure for AP corrections, but anyone can still send a pre-written email to AP CEO Tom Curley, Chairman Burl Osborne, Editor Kathleen Carroll, the reporters who worked on the story (the egregious Jennifer Loven, along with Anne Gearan and Robert Burns), plus a smattering of other AP editors and bureaucrats. Who knows. There may even be a limit to how disingenuous some of these people are willing to be.


To join our blogbursts, just send your blog's url.

In Memory of Stephen Tyrone Johns

By Findalis

Hat tip to Simply Jews


A week ago a warm, loving, gentle man was gunned down by a sick nut case who could not bear the fact that all people as equal.

Stephen Tyrone Johns never held public office, never gave away a fortune to charity, and never won American Idol.

He was just an average Joe, trying to earn a living. A family man with small children.

Stewphen Johns has been described as one of the nicest men who worked there. He even held the door open for the killer when he saw the 88 year old man trying to enter and held the door open for him.

That was the type of man Stephen Johns was. Caring more about others than himself.

The Washington Branch of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) has set up a Memorial Fund for the Johns Family:

The American Jewish Committee's Washington, D.C. chapter has set up a memorial fund to benefit the family of Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, who was killed Wednesday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The organization said it will soon have a place on its Web site where one can contribute, but those who want to donate immediately should send checks made out to the American Jewish Committee, with "Holocaust Museum Memorial Fund" in the memo line, to:

American Jewish Committee, Washington Chapter

C/O Melanie Maron

1156 15th Street, NW, Suite 1201

Washington DC 20005

One hundred percent of the contribution will go to the Johns family.

A Facebook page has also been set up.

Flowers wilt and die, the Memorial Fund will last for years to help his family cope with his loss.