On Monday morning, as our team began to prepare a report about Unilever-owned Ben & Jerry’s decision to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, we were stopped in our tracks by our advertiser and friend Dani Secemski of Teaneck’s Glatt Express Supermarket. While many people had started posting about the sour taste combo of ice cream and BDS on social media, Dani was the first person who placed a truly local angle on the story. His Teaneck store had posted its immediate decision to pull all Ben & Jerry’s ice cream products, reiterating their support of Israel and against the divisive, antisemitic policies of the BDS movement.

Within hours, many other kosher supermarkets in our region had followed suit, including Cedar Market, Seasons, Aron’s Kissena Farms and even Gourmet Glatt. We are proud to be associated with them all.

Our community should be aware that it is our pro-Israel voices and our support of retailers who share our beliefs that could really turn this thing around. Ben & Jerry’s has been ruminating around this topic for years and their executives’ misguided policy on BDS ignores and rejects the many years we supported them as a Jewish community.

As a pro-Israel community, we should support companies that reflect our values. Let’s give some chizuk to our local kosher markets and even go a step further. Let’s also choose not to patronize Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shops, and decline to buy these products in other stores as well. Perhaps some of our readers would feel inspired to put in a call to local Ben and Jerry’s locations, local ShopRites or Stop-and-Shops and discuss this topic.

No one can deny it; ice cream is delicious and it’s the height of summer. Let’s eat it. Just not from companies who support BDS.