Ep 618: Influential Origins with Alan Mindel and guest Ramon Maislen P1 on hmTv

Ep. 618 — Influential Origins with Alan Mindel
Guest: Ramon Maislen — Part 1
hmTv at HMTC

In Part 1 of Influential Origins, host Alan Mindel sits down with Brooklyn real estate investor and community advocate Ramon Maislen for a powerful conversation about community, identity, antisemitism, and the dangerous shift he has witnessed in Brooklyn since October 7th.

Ramon reflects on his deep connection to Brooklyn, especially Park Slope, a neighborhood long known for diversity, inclusivity, and neighborly connection. But after the Hamas attacks in Israel, Ramon says that sense of safety and shared community changed dramatically. With family ties to Israel and personal memories of living through the Second Intifada, he describes how the trauma of October 7th became deeply personal, while many around him seemed unable or unwilling to respond with empathy.

Alan and Ramon discuss the rise of anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric in local politics, protests, graffiti, and community institutions, including disturbing incidents involving the Brooklyn Museum and the targeting of Jewish individuals. Ramon also shares his experience with the Park Slope Food Coop, once a place of connection across backgrounds, and how renewed efforts to bring the BDS movement into the co-op created division, hostility, and fear among Jewish members.

This episode examines what happens when local activism crosses into intimidation, when community spaces become battlegrounds, and why paying attention to local politics and civic institutions matters more than ever.

Transcript

Influential Origins with Alan Mindel
Episode 618: Ramon Maislen — Part 1
hmTv at HMTC

Alan Mindel:
Humanity, this is Alan Mindel with Influential Origins, and today we have a phenomenal guest, Ramon Maislen. Ramon, welcome to the program. It is really an honor and a privilege to have you here.

Ramon Maislen:
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the invitation.

Alan Mindel:
Ramon, you are a very community-active person, and you live in a part of the world you love: Brooklyn. You have been there for a good long time. How long have you been in Brooklyn?

Ramon Maislen:
I have been in Brooklyn for over 15 years at this point. I moved there around 2011, but I was living in Manhattan before that. I was born in Manhattan, but my father lived in Carroll Gardens, so as a kid I grew up in a lot of these neighborhoods. Throughout high school, my godfather gave me a place to crash when I would visit with friends over the weekends and things like that.

Alan Mindel:
Community, and understanding community, is an important part of what you do. In business, you are a real estate investor and player in the field. You understand the markets, and you understand communities and how important they are.

Ramon Maislen:
Certainly.

Alan Mindel:
What made you pick Brooklyn as the place to live, and the Park Slope area in particular?

Ramon Maislen:
I think living next to a park is really special in New York City. We have a lack of green space generally, so to me it was really important when my first son was born to be near a park. That is why I chose Park Slope.

But in general, I was drawn to the vibe of Brooklyn. It is a little more laid back than Manhattan, and it suited my needs as a person. I like to tell people that Park Slope is kind of like Sesame Street. You know a lot of your neighbors. You know a lot of the shopkeepers. There are many longtime residents there. It has this very community-oriented vibe that I really enjoyed.

Alan Mindel:
It has always been a melting pot, at least up until recently, of people from all walks of life, all ethnicities, sexual orientations, races, and religions living together in this unique community for decades upon decades.

Ramon Maislen:
Definitely. It has always felt like that. It has also become increasingly international. You are adding more people from South America, Europe, and all over the world. It is an interesting place.

Alan Mindel:
A place that always believed in other people and their ability to enjoy life, raise their kids, make their families, make their living, and coexist together. Inclusivity.

Ramon Maislen:
Inclusivity, yes.

Alan Mindel:
That is what Brooklyn was always supposed to be about. But over the last few years, does that describe the way the Brooklyn vibe has gone?

Ramon Maislen:
Definitely not. It has been a pretty unfortunate shift, one that I think was felt most acutely immediately after October 7th. It could be that the writing had been on the wall and I just had not been paying attention.

Many of us were living in our little bubbles, raising children, working, dealing with stress. You do not have a lot of time to pay attention to political currents necessarily. Most of us were maybe paying attention to national currents, but I will speak for myself: I was not super engaged on a very local level. I could not have even told you who my local city council member was or who my local state assembly member was. By the way, many people I know still cannot name those people.

Alan Mindel:
But you have come to the conclusion that it matters more than they realize.

Ramon Maislen:
Very much so. Maybe belatedly, but better late than never.

Alan Mindel:
After October 7th, and even in the time leading up to it, tell me about some of the incidents that started to occur where things seemed a little different in Brooklyn.

Ramon Maislen:
The shock of October 7th was pretty stark. I lived in Israel for close to seven years, and my wife is Israeli. She has a lot of family from the South and living in the South, so we had family members who were directly impacted. Thank God none of them were killed, but they witnessed some horrible things.

We had an immediate, visceral reaction within minutes of everything starting, because the voice notes and WhatsApp messages started coming through. That was the initial change. For us, it became very personal very quickly. And for many Jews, even if they did not have family members there, it became very personal very quickly.

But for most other people, it did not. We woke up that morning, and two of our children were in travel soccer on different teams and different ages. I had to drive to Albany, and my wife had to drive to New Jersey for different tournaments very early in the morning. We drove in separate directions. The other parents were just cheering on their sons in these games, and we were glued to our phones trying to figure out what was happening, because it was not clear.

That was the initial break. I think it just got worse from there. There was a lack of empathy and a lack of understanding.

Alan Mindel:
So that people understand why there should be empathy, even to this day, if you listen to some press clippings, you would think there was some war that Israel started. Explain briefly what happened on October 7th in Israel for those who are unaware.

Ramon Maislen:
On October 7th, Hamas, the militant group and terrorist group, entered southern Israel and carried out a pretty complex operation to murder and kidnap as many people as they could.

Alan Mindel:
And in that event, because this becomes relevant later in how it has been investigated, reported, and handled here in New York and by the New York Times in particular, women were raped to death. Bones were broken at the hip. People were beheaded. Dogs and pets were slaughtered. Babies were burned alive. It was the worst horror of humanity, recorded and played on Instagram and Facebook for hours, videoed by the people perpetrating these acts.

Ramon Maislen:
Yes.

Alan Mindel:
And it was specifically targeted so that people like you and me would absorb the horror of it and see it firsthand.

Ramon Maislen:
I think that was the intention.

Alan Mindel:
We are sitting here in a Holocaust center. This museum is dedicated to the memory of those lost in the Holocaust. But if you walk outside in our gardens, you will see a plaque and memorial dedicated to the October 7th victims, because it was the single deadliest day for Jews since the end of the Holocaust.

Ramon Maislen:
When we were in Israel in February for my middle son’s bar mitzvah, we went to the Nova festival site to pay our respects. It was not an easy place to be.

Alan Mindel:
That is what happened in our world. There were parents who might not have known what happened. But there was a different reaction from your city councilwoman.

Ramon Maislen:
At that time, I still did not actually know who she was, which is interesting. It only started to become clear to me as I met more community activists, and her name started to come up more and more.

Alan Mindel:
Where was Councilwoman Hanif around that time?

Ramon Maislen:
I actually do not know if she was at the DSA rally or not. I do not think she was, or I would have known. But immediately following those days, she went to protest against Israel and was arrested within a couple of weeks. After that, she was at the encampments at Columbia University. She was very much making a statement that Israel was the aggressor.

She still had “Globalize the Intifada” up on her X, formerly Twitter. She had also reposted Nerdeen Kiswani from Within Our Lifetime, who is an extremist antisemite.

Alan Mindel:
So she represents you in New York City.

Ramon Maislen:
Yes.

Alan Mindel:
She is the person who is supposed to be dealing with the police and dealing with government. She is your local contact. And her message to you, as a Jewish guy living in Brooklyn, is that she wants to globalize the Intifada.

What occurred on October 7th was part of the Intifada. So the theory is: you have your kids, your wife, and you live in Brooklyn, and the stated goal is to take what happened in southern Israel and globalize it to Brooklyn.

Ramon Maislen:
Yes. I actually lived in Israel during the Second Intifada, and I had friends who were in suicide bombings. I narrowly missed being blown up on numerous occasions. So to me, the idea of Intifada is very real and visceral. It means death and destruction. Anybody declaring that they want to globalize that, to me, is a hate monger.

Alan Mindel:
And that is the person who is supposed to be protecting you where you live.

Ramon Maislen:
Exactly.

Alan Mindel:
Shocking. Did you ever reach out to her office about any of this?

Ramon Maislen:
Not initially. What happened was that there were a number of Jewish community leaders who worked within Jewish nonprofits, religious institutions, or had been active on UJA boards and other Jewish organization boards. They asked for a meeting with her.

In the meeting, they recorded it. She did not initially know it was being recorded, and in New York State you are allowed to do that. They asked her a number of questions. They asked, “Are you willing to condemn Hamas?” She basically was not able to do that. They asked, “Are you willing to deal with all of this graffiti that we are seeing everywhere?” She said she did not see it as a problem.

Alan Mindel:
Explain to people what some of that graffiti was, because some of the museums in Brooklyn were affected as well. There were Jewish people in certain positions at museums, not really positions of power, who were targeted because they were Jews.

Ramon Maislen:
Yes. I think what happened was a steadily increasing level of vitriol. In the beginning, some of the graffiti was a little more mellow, let’s say. Hanif’s point was basically, “If it just says Free Palestine, then I am not going to deal with it.”

Our position was, at the end of the day, when you are screaming “Free Palestine” at a Jew, that is not exactly advocating for justice for Palestinians. You are targeting Jews in a way that is meant to do psychological damage to them, and it is not doing anything to help Palestinians. Trying to get that message across was important.

What you are talking about with the Brooklyn Museum was when it had already escalated. It continued to escalate, and I would say it continues to escalate. It is only getting worse right now.

Alan Mindel:
Tell people what exactly happened at the Brooklyn Museum, because it is a pretty incredible story that seemed to come in and out of the news as if it was not even there.

Ramon Maislen:
It is sad, because at the end of the day, there is so much going on that it is wild to think about whether the news stories can even keep up with everything that is happening.

What happened at the Brooklyn Museum was that I believe Within Our Lifetime, which is again a very violent organization, organized a rally in front of the Brooklyn Museum. Quote-unquote activists stormed the building and got on top of the OY/YO sculpture.

That sculpture is beautiful because the museum is at the crossroads where Prospect Heights and Park Slope turn into Crown Heights. There had been previous tensions between the Jewish and Black communities there. This sculpture, which says “OY” in one direction and “YO” in the other, is a really beautiful piece of art showing that people are not that different and can come together.

What did they do? They did millions of dollars of damage to it. They put graffiti on it, stickers on it, scratched it, and did all of these things in the midst of a somewhat violent protest at the museum. Later, they even targeted the director, who is Jewish. They targeted her home and did graffiti there as well.

Alan Mindel:
The OY/YO sculpture is not about Israel. It is about Jews and African Americans living together peacefully. That was unacceptable to Within Our Lifetime.

Ramon Maislen:
I think any sort of Jewish coexistence and Jewish acceptance is unacceptable to, sadly, a swath of the population.

Alan Mindel:
The targeting that happened with the director later, and even on the building, included red triangles. You know what those triangles are about.

Ramon Maislen:
Yes. Those are targets. Those are basically Hamas targets for who should be killed.

Alan Mindel:
So the person who happens to be a museum director in Brooklyn, for a museum that is not about Israel and is not about Jews, was targeted. What kind of art does the museum mostly have?

Ramon Maislen:
It rotates, but it is art and culture and things like that. It does not have anything to do with Israel or Jews for the most part.

Alan Mindel:
Because she was Jewish, not Israeli or anything else, she was targeted in Brooklyn, where she lived, at her place of work, and then at her home.

Ramon Maislen:
You would be surprised how many people I have seen walking around these neighborhoods wearing necklaces with a red triangle or shirts with a red triangle. What you see online is extensive, but they are doing it in real life too.

Alan Mindel:
So as you go down the street now, the message is, “I am here to target you.”

Ramon Maislen:
Yes.

Alan Mindel:
And that target means, “I am here to kill you and your family while I am walking down the street here in Brooklyn.” That is the message you are getting.

Ramon Maislen:
That is the message.

Alan Mindel:
Did Councilwoman Hanif do anything to help and say, “No, if you are Israeli, Zionist, or Jewish, this is all off the table. We can have a political discussion, but it cannot be a personal attack”?

Ramon Maislen:
She was not interested in having that conversation.

Alan Mindel:
There was then a vote basically condemning or ending Jewish hatred in New York City. Almost all the council members voted for it. The bill had no teeth in it. It did not actually change anything. It was just saying, “We are going to end hatred of Jews.” Did Councilwoman Hanif vote for that?

Ramon Maislen:
She did not. I think she was one of only maybe two people who did not.

Alan Mindel:
So in effect, whatever else she was willing to end in the world, Jew hatred was not one of those things. This is an elected official.

Ramon Maislen:
Yes.

Alan Mindel:
Let’s go from here to the food co-op. Before all of this went down, before there was any controversy, when everyone was using it, tell me what the food co-op was really like prior to October 7th.

Ramon Maislen:
We had a previous run-in with the boycott movement in 2012, but it was voted down by a two-thirds majority. The vote was actually on whether we should hold a referendum about a boycott, and we voted down even having a referendum. That is what it was like in 2012. There was a very small group of people who wanted to do a boycott, and the vast majority of people were not interested in it.

Alan Mindel:
Why were they not interested in it? I think this is an important part of the story. It was not that they were making a statement about Israel.

Ramon Maislen:
I was a member of the co-op at that time, and I voted against it. I thought it was bringing divisiveness to the co-op. I think the BDS movement, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, is inherently aligned with the elimination of the State of Israel. It is not a peaceful movement. It is not a movement for coexistence. For that reason, I think many people voted against it.

Alan Mindel:
There is no BDS saying, “We are going to have a two-state solution. Everyone has the same rights in their own country. We can live well together.” That is not what it is about at all.

Ramon Maislen:
Correct.

Alan Mindel:
And the co-op was not interested in going into the politics of any of it at that time. Two-thirds of the people basically said, “This is not even about Israel. We are here to get food.”

Ramon Maislen:
The refrain from a lot of people was, “This is an effing grocery store.” We just wanted to come and shop.

From 2012 until 2023, I would say it felt great to be a member of the food co-op. It was a very unique place for an adult. You had people from all different socioeconomic backgrounds, all different kinds of jobs, different ages, and everyone was required to work. You are required to work at the co-op in order to shop there.

So you meet a lot of people you would not normally meet. You might work in tech and suddenly meet someone who is a librarian. Or you might work as a schoolteacher and meet someone who writes mystery novels. There is a very diverse population within central Brooklyn, Park Slope, and the surrounding areas among the people who use the co-op.

You make friends with people you would not normally meet. For the most part, that does not happen after you leave college. It is a unique experience for many adults. People find a lot of community there, and it is very welcoming.

If you are looking for a certain type of cheese, you can get on the intercom in the co-op, for instance. You do not say, “Does the co-op carry this cheese?” You say, “Do we carry this cheese?” You really feel that you are an owner. You are part of it. You are not only a member of the community, but you actually help make the place work.

People feel very strongly about the co-op and the community it brings. Usually, when you are shopping, you run into people you know. It might be people from your kids’ school, or it might be someone you worked a shift with three months ago.

Alan Mindel:
Someone you were lifting papayas with.

Ramon Maislen:
Exactly. When you are not used to working in a grocery store, as 99 percent of us are not, and then you work in a grocery store once a month for almost three hours, a lot of funny things happen. You create relationships with people.

Alan Mindel:
From all walks of life.

Ramon Maislen:
From all walks of life.

Alan Mindel:
But then something changed.

Ramon Maislen:
Yes.

Alan Mindel:
Were the founders of the co-op interested in that change?

Ramon Maislen:
No, definitely not. What happened was that the October 7th attack happened, and within less than a month after that, a group of activists brought back the notion of joining the BDS movement.

Immediately after the attack, something that had been dormant for eleven or twelve years suddenly came back to the forefront. That was a shock. We were still processing the grief of what had just transpired, and then all of a sudden, unbeknownst to us, there was a motion to bring this boycott back into the mix.

One of the founders of the co-op was still leading it at the time, a guy named Joe Holtz, who retired just last year. He created it with a bunch of other hippies more than 50 years ago. The rules governing the co-op are very much in the vein of somebody who was a hippie and created a co-op 50 years ago.

We have meetings every month, and all of the co-op members get to vote in those meetings. It is a full democracy. Whatever happens in those meetings is then rubber-stamped or approved by the board of directors. But the board of directors is really just members, and only one staff member is on the board. There are six board members, and only one of them is staff.

Essentially, all of the corporate governance is run by members who work there for roughly three hours a month. The BDS activists were very smart. They looked at it and said, “This is a pretty weak institution. Let’s take it over.”

Luckily, I caught on to that idea pretty early. I thought, “If they are going to do that, then I should probably try to do that as well.”

In June 2024, there was the first board election for two seats following October 7th. That was the first time there were elections. So I started running.

What I realized was that these BDS activists had been out front of the co-op collecting signatures, telling everybody there was a genocide in the immediate days following October 7th, even before Israel was in Gaza.

Alan Mindel:
If there was a genocide, they were not even there yet to do it.

Ramon Maislen:
Correct. A lot of these activists were already marching and organizing. They collected a lot of names. They were very well organized.

If I take a step back and look at it objectively, it seems like they were building a separate community, and a lot of that community was based on hatred of the other. The “other” being the quote-unquote Zionist. They would not engage with me. They would not speak with me. I said, “Okay, I am just going to run for the board of directors as well.”

They were so organized that they crushed me. All of a sudden, they got two BDS activists on the board. They already had a DSA-type person on the board, which is typical for that neighborhood in Brooklyn, specifically Park Slope and the surrounding areas. So essentially, they took over the board in one election.

It was very dispiriting. During the lead-up to the election, another woman and I were both running for the board of directors, and we had people flyering on our behalf. The number of instances of people screaming at them, calling the people flyering genocide supporters or dirty Zionists, and things like that, was truly disturbing.

It led to a number of disciplinary hearings, but the co-op essentially did nothing about it, which further frustrated us during that period.

Alan Mindel:
Because you were getting attacked for running.

Ramon Maislen:
I was getting attacked for being a quote-unquote Zionist, whether I was running or not. The people flyering were attacked too.

Alan Mindel:
That was your crime.

Ramon Maislen:
My crime was being a Zionist, whatever that means to them. They have a very different definition of Zionist than we do.

Alan Mindel:
They are creating a definition.

Ramon Maislen:
Correct. I think, at the end of the day, they are part of the anti-Zionist hate movement. It is very cult-like, and they have really created this sub-community within the community of the co-op. Its explicit goal is to exclude anybody who is a quote-unquote genocide supporter, a quote-unquote Zionist.

Alan Mindel:
Again, a Jew.

Ramon Maislen:
A Jew. Many of them are Jews, which is shocking. Some of the leaders are Jews, and they obviously use those Jews as shields against antisemitism. It is disturbing.

Many of the people within the anti-Zionist movement specific to our area, Park Slope, and these progressive areas are Jewish, which is shocking.

Alan Mindel:
Mamdani won a lot of votes, and there are a lot of Jews who voted for him.

Ramon Maislen:
In my neighborhood, it was probably 65 percent. I do not know if he really hit 40 percent with the Jewish community overall, but in my neighborhood, I would say two-thirds of the people voted for him.

Alan Mindel:
Overall, for Jewish voters, that was the statistic. I want to get into the very specifics about this. We are going to take a quick break, and we will be right back