An anti-Zionist boycott of Israeli wine organized in Toronto just before the Passover holiday backfired when hundreds of pro-Israeli consumers bought up a store’s entire stock.
Sheri Shefa of the Canadian Jewish News reports that a Jewish non-Zionist group attempted to organize an anti-Israel picket in front of a liquor store. They planned to distribute information against “Israeli apartheid” and asked Passover celebrants to mark their holiday without Israeli-made wines.
It didn’t turn out that way.
Hundreds of pro-Israel consumers took the opportunity to hold a pro-Israel festival and bought up the store’s entire stock of Israeli wine - including the Carmel, Barkan, Golan Heights, Gush Etzion (Efrat), Binyamina, Baron, Segal Dalton and other brands - in a matter of hours.
Some 600 people came to the store at a designated time specifically to buy Israeli wine, while the Jewish motorcycle club Yids on Wheels and a Chabad cube van drove up and down the street blaring Hebrew songs. Pro-Israel supporters waved or draped themselves in Israeli flags as they danced and sang HaTikvah, Israel’s national anthem, in front of the store.
Many also carried signs reading, “Support Israel. Buy Israeli wine” and “Israeli apartheid = Pure Balderdash.”
The counter-boycott was organized by Don Carr, president of the Canadian Jewish News, and his wife Judy Feld Carr. When they learned of the planned anti-Israel event last month, they sent emails to everyone on their e-mail list, asking them to show up and nix the boycott. Members of many Toronto Jewish groups showed up as asked.
The between six and twelve anti-Israel protestors made up a “forlorn little group [standing] meekly on the sidewalk,” Mr. Carr said afterwards. They soon left as they watched the situation develop to their dissatisfaction.
A total of 1,455 bottles of Israeli kosher wine and spirits were sold at the Summerhill LCBO store that Sunday, according to a company spokesman.