Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Forward 50 2012

Andy Bachman

The February fight over whether a Brooklyn supermarket should boycott Israeli goods may not have been the most important battle in the debate over the international movement to impose boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. It may, however, have been the most visible.

That’s because the supermarket was the Park Slope Food Co-op, the venerable organic food mecca in Brooklyn’s most gentrified corner. The neighborhood is home to countless media professionals who covered the brawl in their backyard with uncommon excitement.

On the anti-boycott side, the most effective advocate wasn’t some Israeli flag-waving propagandist. Rather, it was Andy Bachman, the progressive rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, the local Reform synagogue. For those glad to see the boycott defeated, Bachman deserves much of the credit.

“[T]he reasonable center prevailed,” Bachman wrote in a piece for the Forward about the debate. “It was the intellectually cooperative result of what happens when a community is willing to model tolerance of perspective and moderation in behavior.”

The co-op coup was only the latest demonstration of the rabbi’s growing influence. Bachman, 49, has led Beth Elohim since 2006. Known for his rapport with young, engaged Jews, he has built bridges with more observant egalitarian independent minyans, housing a number of prayer groups in Beth Elohim’s space.

In another sign of his clout, the Union for Reform Judaism chose Bachman’s synagogue to host an investiture ceremony for Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the newly named head of the Reform movement.

Also this year, Bachman’s synagogue won a $250,000 grant to fix its collapsed ceiling. With Bachman keeping the syngogue full, they’ll need a finished roof.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.