Canada’s Largest Protestant Church Launches Boycott of West Bank Goods
Canada’s largest Protestant church launched a campaign to boycott goods made in the West Bank.
The United Church of Canada campaign, dubbed “Unsettling Goods: Choose Peace in Palestine and Israel,” encourages “economic action” against three Israeli companies: Keter Plastic Ltd., SodaStream and Ahava, which all have factories in the West Bank.
“With these efforts, we join with many others striving to bring peace with justice to the Holy Land,” the church’s moderator, Gary Paterson, wrote in a November letter to church members announcing the launch of the campaign.
Churchgoers are also urged to avoid retailers carrying the products, such as Canadian Tire, The Bay, Home Depot and Walmart.
The church effort is “nothing less than an assault on the Jewish people,” said a statement from the Toronto-based Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center.
“The echoes of the past history of Church-sanctioned anti-Semitism continue to grow stronger,” said Avi Benlolo, president of the center, who accused the church of giving “tacit support for the hatred and terror” against Israel.
Frank Dimant, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, noted that SodaStream, which makes products to carbonate tap water, employs close to 1,000 Palestinians at its Ma’ale Adumim manufacturing facility alone.
“If individuals and groups, such as the United Church, who promote boycotts of Israeli products would only take the time to examine the facts, they would realize who they really are hurting,” he said.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which runs BUYcott Israel, an initiative to encourage Canadians to buy Israeli products, called the church initiative “an abysmal failure.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ includes 17% tariffs on Israeli imports, even as Israel cancels tariffs on US goods
-
Fast Forward Hillel CEO says he shares ‘concerns’ over campus deportations, calls for due process
-
Fast Forward Jewish Princeton student accused of assault at protest last year is found not guilty
-
News ‘Qatargate’ and the web of huge scandals rocking Israel, explained
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.