Tuesday night's vote by members of the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn rejected a motion on whether to hold a referendum on the boycott, with 1,005 voting against and 653 in favor.
The turnout was so big that the meeting was moved from a small neighborhood synagogue to a 3,000-seat auditorium at Brooklyn Technical High School. /p>
Earlier, there were clusters of people handing out pamphlets and debating the issue on the sidewalk.
Some believed it was a necessary cause that needed immediate action.
"It's an issue of policy the oppression of the Palestinian people," co-op member Dennis James said.
Others believed it unfairly targets Israel and its people.
"It's divisive," co-op member Phrnque Gallo said. "I don't mind boycotting. They can do it in a way that it's not against one country."
And in the middle were members who think the co-op should just stay out of it.
"I think we should not have an opinion," member Dakkan Abby said. "I think it's too contentious an issue for most and too emotional. It divides what's already a united community."
Politicians, including Mayor Mike Bloomberg, weighed in.
"I think it has nothing to do with the food," Bloomberg said. "The issue is there are people who want Israel to be torn apart and everybody to be massacred and America's not going to let that happen."
Boycotts are not new at the co-op. Its board has voted other products off shelves, including Coca-Cola because of alleged illegal labor practices in Columbia and Chilean grapes to protest the Pinochet dictatorship.
Neither of those issues got this much of a response.
In this case, Public Advocate and Brooklyn resident Bill de Blasio said he was proud of his neighbors for doing the right thing, calling the proposal inflammatory and destructive.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn called the idea "ill conceived" and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer denounced the proposed boycott as "an anti-Semitic crusade."
The debate over the proposed boycott at the 39-year-old market was mostly symbolic because the co-op carries only a half-dozen imported products from Israel.
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