Yesterday, on the last day of Passover, protesters surrounded the doors of Zabar’s—the iconic Upper West Side grocer famous for its knishes and lox—to demand the store stop selling the carbonated beverage maker SodaStream. The roughly 40 protesters, carrying guitars and signs decrying “Apartheid Soda,” represented a coalition of volunteers from Adalah-NY (meaning “justice” in Arabic), Jewish Voice for Peace, and members of the failed initiative to boycott Israeli products at the Park Slope Co-Op.
Some of Zabar’s customers appeared unaffected while others were clearly annoyed at the ruckus. “Go to hell, anti-Semites!” shouted one customer as he left the store, hoisting a SodaStream, an Israeli soda making device made in a factory in Maale Adumin, a suburb of Jerusalem. “You all go to hell!”
