British SodaStream Repair Store Shut After 2 Years of Protests
An Israeli-owned store in England that sold replacement parts for SodaStream closed after two years of weekly boycott protests.
The EcoStream shop in the coastal town of Brighton shut down last week, the Jewish Chronicle reported.
The store sold the recyclable bottles for the SodaStream machines made in the factory in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim.
Since September 2012, pro-Palestinian activists from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have demonstrated in front of the store every Saturday as part of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. The Sussex Friends of Israel staged regular counter-protests, according to the Chronicle.
“Following a two-year test period, the company has decided to focus its business efforts on other channels,” a SodaStream spokesman told the Jewish Chronicle.
The British department store chain John Lewis recently removed SodaStream products from its shelves as well.
SodaStream had been in the news in recent months following the signing of actress Scarlett Johansson as a spokeswoman and the ensuing controversy over its West Bank factory.
Johansson resigned as a global ambassador for Oxfam over her position with the company, which employs Jewish and Palestinian workers in Maale Adumim.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!