See this story at BrooklynPaper.com.<\/p>\n
By Colin Mixson<\/p>\n
Brooklyn Paper<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
They’re out of the club, but they’ll never be out of club soda. <\/p>\n
Israeli seltzer-machine-maker Soda Stream rewarded four members of the Park Slope Food Co-op with free swag after they were kicked out of the socialist supermarket for disrupting a meeting to defend the business against pro-Palestinian members who want to ban its products.<\/p>\n
And the exiles say the prize is proof their controversial defense of the promised land was the act of heroism they have believed it to be all along. <\/p>\n
“The co-op sees me as a criminal and other people see me as a hero,” said Rhudi Andreolli. “I was so excited. I’m an ordinary person doing extraordinary things!”<\/p>\n
The crunchy Union Street store sentenced Millie Ruttner, Alan Ettlinger, Andreolli and her sister to one-year suspensions after finding them guilty of “uncooperative behavior” at a meeting last year where members of the grocery store’s so-called “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” movement were condemning Soda Stream for its factory in the West Bank — the culmination of an eight-year battle between members over banishing Israeli products from shelves to protest the country’s occupation of Palestine.<\/p>\n
In a letter included with the make-your-own pop machines, Soda Stream did not explicitly mention that they were rewards for rushing the stage to unplug the projector the pro-boycotters were using to convey their message, instead writing that they are for “sharing information with the Park Slope Food Co-op about the fair and transparent way we operate and about our commitment to creating broad opportunity.”<\/p>\n
But it is clear to the rabble rousers that their unsanctioned offensive was at the heart of the company’s gift.<\/p>\n
“It’s just a thank-you for standing up for them, which we did,” said Ettlinger.<\/p>\n
The machine allows the spurned shoppers to convert regular tap water into flavored soda, and they think the gizmo is pretty neat.<\/p>\n
“I love seltzer water,” said Andreolli. “In the co-op, I was buying organic sodas, and it was expensive. Sometimes I make the seltzer and get so excited.”<\/p>\n
The exiles would rather see themselves welcomed back to the co-op, ending their banishment to such loathsome markets as Key Foods and C-Town, but their new home kitchen appliances are nonetheless a welcome consolation prize as they serve out the remainder of their suspension, said Ettlinger.<\/p>\n
“We haven’t had an effect on the co-op yet — that’s like hitting your head against a brick wall — but it vindicates us as far as that we did something right,” he said. “We were protesting b——- and hatred, which any moral human being would do.”<\/p>\n
Neither the co-op, nor its Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions group, returned requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4505.<\/p>\n
Comment on this story.<\/p>\n