Here is why I didn’t buy that sweet little bouquet of Daffodils at Trader Joe’s

In my blog posts, I am trying to avoid having a bitter tinge in my writing.

I’ve heard advice to avoid politics in my blog, unless I want to have a political blog.

I want to write about happy things, like the anticipation of spring in this very cold corner of New York.

When you live in Western New York, winter can drag on until mid April.

When you live in Western New York, you hang on to your “sleeping bag” puffy black jacket until Mid-April.

“Spring” sports have begun in school.

Youngsters at this very moment are at an ultimate frisbee match.

Outside temperature right now is 28 degrees.

And it’s still snowing.

And when you are a Western New Yorker, a yearning for spring makes beautiful, sweet bouquet at Trader Joes – prices at $1.49 for 10 flowers – extremely hard to resist. 

So I picked two bunches and carefully placed them in my cart, as to not crush their happy yellow heads.

As I got on line, I happened to check the label of the flowers.

“These flowers were proudly grown for you in England.”

England. A product of England, eh?

Nope. I put them back.

Wanna know why?

Because my love for Israel is stronger than my desire for a floral impulse buy.

The UK, in the past decade, the anti-Israel atmosphere has only thickened and intensified.

In the UK, it is just fine and socially acceptable to call upon the boycott of Israeli products, Israeli-created technology, and even Israeli intelligence all under the guise that Zionism= racism. 

Zionism, by the way, is no way related nor does it ever condone discriminating one because of one’s race, religion or sexuality. Zion comes from the Hebrew word “excellence” which is what Theodore Herzl dreamed about – the creation of a homeland that would be for the Jewish people but would also serve as an example and a resource of excellence for the rest of the world.

At Oxford University, students are set to vote whether or not the university should boycott all products and companies that have ties to Israel.

In the UK, academics at top Universities call for a boycott of collaborating with universities in Israel. At one point, there was a petition to arrest any Israeli academic visiting England upon landing for war crimes. 

And finally, I thought about England’s Chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks address at last month’s AIPAC conference, which he referenced how anti-globalisation protests in England quickly devolve into anti-Jewish protests.  You can check out the video here:

All these thoughts swirled around my head as I admired the daffodils.

i didn’t start a protest to boycott Trader Joe’s, as many Arabs have done outside TJ’s around the country for daring to carry Israeli products.

No. I just had my own personal boycott.

No England. You can keep you daffodils. I’ll boycott you back. And I’ll wait for my own flowers to pop up in a few weeks, thank you very much.