Brewing a boycott

A week has passed since the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court ruled that Sahar Shefa, the owner of the Aroma Tel Aviv chain of coffee shops, libeled Mali Shalev, an employee of Colmobile, the importer of Mercedes cars. In the wake of the ruling, Assaf Peretz, the chairman of the union of scriptwriters and directors, wrote an op-ed piece for yesterday's edition of Yedioth Ahronoth in which he called for a consumer boycott of Aroma outlets.

"In other countries, small groups would have organized and picketed Aroma branches," wrote Peretz. "This time I decided it's enough and I will not patronize any branch of Aroma. The same is true of my friends and their friends."

According to the complaint filed by Shalev, two years ago Shefa entered the Mercedes dealer's office to buy a model through personal import. Because the employees were at a conference, there was no one to take care of him. When Mali Shalev approached him after some time, Shefa shouted at her, 'Do you see the color of my skin? I'm white and you're black, and I'm going to screw you." And he went on: "This white will teach you a lesson, you're a black stain, a black, inferior woman - you're nothing, and I make $800 a minute."

Shalev filed a libel suit for NIS 100,000 and won.

"I wrote the article as a sign of solidarity with my surroundings and this morning I received around 70 SMSes and lots of messages," says Peretz. "It's possible that this will be the beginning of a campaign, the man after all makes a living from us and he only understands money.

"I've already received some proposals from senior people in my field, to distribute printed copies of the article at the entrance to the cafe, and I'm thinking about doing it."

There was a call for a consumer boycott of a retail store last June. Army Radio reporter David Glick aired a report on an investigation he did together with Wasim Kanaza, a first-year social work student at Tel Aviv University. During the investigation, the two, who have similar personal statistics, tried to get a job at Arcaffe. Kanaza, 20, from Nazareth, was rejected by three different branches: the Schuster Center branch in Ramat Aviv Gimel, the Basel Street branch in Tel Aviv and the Herzliya Pituah branch. Glick, on the other hand, received a job offer from all three branches.

Following the investigation the Mossawa Center (Advocacy Center for Arab Palestinian Citizens of Israel) submitted a complaint to the Industry and Trade Ministry about racial discrimination against workers. Attorney Ragha Abu Akel, the Mossawa Center's legal adviser, says: "The complaint was submitted to the Industry and Trade Ministry's enforcement and arrangement administration. We are considering also filing a suit for damages after the completion of the investigation. Unfortunately, no one from the chain contacted us even after there was a demonstration on June 7 opposite the branch in the Basel complex. The chain did not even bother to apologize, and its management denied the incident."

The investigation and the complaint reverberated in the media, although to a lesser extent than the case involving Sahar Shefa, the owner of Aroma Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, as a result of the complaint, Haaretz in Hebrew featured an opinion piece by attorney Lisa Bloom, in which she compared Israel in 2006 to the American South in the 1960s. In Israel, she notes in the piece, the situation is slightly more complex. Her hope to prevent such discrimination in the future hangs on the equal opportunity employment law.

Do the successful cafe chains sense any of the clientele's discomfort following the reports? The managers of Aroma Israel, which is owned by Yariv Shefa, the brother of Sahar Shefa, and which is a completely separate entity from Aroma Tel Aviv (due to disagreements between the brothers), this week contacted for the first time a public relations firm specializing in crisis control, Arad Communications. They are also considering making a more obvious distinction between themselves and Aroma Tel Aviv.

According to Noam Berman, Aroma Israel's marketing director, the only reason it sought professional assistance was appearances: Consumers are not at all aware of the separation between the chains. "But soon they will be more separate," he says.

Berman notes that Sahar Shefa chose not to comment on the situation and adds: "Aroma contributes to the community every day, employs physically and mentally handicapped people and treats each and every worker properly. We vehemently denounce any hurtful comment."

According to Ohad Swerdlov, Arcaffe's marketing manager, "The chain did not feel the consumer boycott of its various branches." The chain denies the existence of any discrimination in hiring, saying employees are hired to work there on the basis of "professional considerations alone."

Galit Avishai, the director general and founder of the Public Trust organization and the former director general of the Israel Consumer Council, says: "I believe there is a readiness for a consumer boycott due to ideological concerns, as opposed to reservations or helplessness when it comes to a boycott on an economic basis.

"It's easier to enlist people in Israel in a boycott based on ideological factors, because matters of principle speak to people."