When Eating Jewish Becomes a Crime

As the global campaign against the Jews continues to spread, Jewish and Israeli restaurants from New York to Sydney are being turned into battlefields.

Safta, an Israeli eatery in Brooklyn, was vandalized on the eve of Yom Kippur last year. (photo: Safta Restaurant)

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This is a guest essay by Vanessa Berg, who writes about Judaism and Israel.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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In cities from London to Sydney, New York to Lisbon, Jewish and Israeli restaurants have increasingly become battlegrounds.

From the protest against Miznon to the closure of Avner’s Bakery, these incidents are not isolated acts of vandalism or protest; they are part of a coordinated campaign against Jewish and Israeli cuisine worldwide.

In July, a Miznon location in Melbourne was stormed by roughly twenty anti-Israel activists linked to the group Whistleblowers, Activists and Communities Alliance. The protesters hurled chairs and food, smashed windows, and flipped tables while shouting threats against the IDF.

Following last month’s Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre in Australia, Avner’s Bakery announced it was permanently closed, writing:

“In the wake of the pogrom at Bondi one thing has become clear - it is no longer possible to make outwardly, publicly, proudly Jewish places and events safe in Australia. After two years of almost ceaseless antisemitic harassment, vandalism and intimidation directed at our little bakery, we have to be realistic about the threats that exist going forward. … As an open and very public business that operates at all hours, we are unable to ensure the safety of our staff, our customers, our families.”

Employees at New York City’s largest Israeli bakery chain recently announced they had formed a union — and quickly framed one of their top demands in apocalyptic terms: “an end to this company’s support of the genocide happening in Palestine.” Their evidence? Breads Bakery’s participation in “Great Nosh,” a citywide festival celebrating Jewish food.

In a statement that tied workplace grievances to global crises, the union explained: “We see our struggles for fair pay, respect, and safety as connected to struggles against genocide and forces of exploitation around the world.” While fair wages and safe working conditions are serious issues, the leap from challah to claims of complicity in genocide made the statement read more like a dramatic manifesto than a traditional labor complaint. (U.S. labor laws do not generally enable unions to make political demands of employers, or protect employees’ ability to take action for that purpose.)

Unlike synagogues or community centers, which often have security measures, surveillance, and protocols in place to protect their congregants, restaurants are soft targets: open to the public, accessible from the street, and inherently welcoming. They are spaces meant for gathering, comfort, connection, and culture, which makes them both highly visible and uniquely vulnerable.

People go to eat not just to fill their stomachs, but to gather with family and friends, to share culture, and to experience joy in everyday life. For Jewish and Israeli restaurants, that role carries an added layer of significance, as they transmit heritage and identity through every dish.

What makes the recent wave of attacks so insidious is that agitators deliberately pervert that purpose. Protesters, vandals, and harassers turn these spaces of warmth and community into zones of fear and intimidation — transforming what should be a sanctuary of nourishment into a theater of hostility. By targeting restaurants, these campaigns strike not just at livelihoods, but at the simple human pleasures of eating, gathering, and feeling safe in public.

Hundreds of Jewish and Israeli restaurants worldwide including Miznon, Goldie Falafel, and Breads Bakery have endured repeated harassment, graffiti, and even physical assault. Staff have been spat on, struck, and threatened, while employees at small cafés in London and Leipzig have faced gangs of youths throwing bottles and shouting antisemitic slurs.

Chef and content creator Tova Sterling accused a commercial brand of blatant discrimination and antisemitism against her after she mentioned the word “Jewish” in content she filmed, and the brand demanded she film new materials.

Recently, dozens of “pro-Palestinian” protesters gathered in front of the restaurant “Miznon” owned famed by Israeli chef Eyal Shani, located in the upscale Notting Hill neighborhood in London. According to the establishment, this is the seventh incident of its kind in several weeks.

Guy Vaknin, an Israeli-born celebrity chef, said he’s the target of a searing hate campaign that is damaging eight vegan restaurants and targeting his kids, amid what he called a “daily” barrage slamming him for failing to condemn Israel amid its war with Hamas after the terror group murdered 1,200 people on October 7, 2023. Business got worse after a September 4th Instagram post from the group “Vegans for Palestine,” which called out Vaknin for his service in the IDF and pushed a boycott.

At Cafe Aronne in New York City’s Upper East Side, run by a proud Israeli family, eight employees quit because the owner hung an Israeli flag at the counter and began a fundraising campaign to help the Israeli Red Cross, in response to October 7th.

Peter Tsadilas, a Greek-American diner owner in Huntington, New York, became a vocal ally of Israel and the Jewish community. Though not Jewish himself, Tsadilas has deep personal ties to the community through friends and family. In response to the October 7th attacks in Israel, he displayed Israeli flags and pictures of hostages in his diner to show solidarity.

His actions sparked immediate backlash: Employees quit, some customers boycotted, and Doordash temporarily removed his restaurant from its platform after complaints. “They told Doordash I was promoting hate and killing babies,” he said, in addition to receiving death threats via phone: “People have been calling and saying, ‘This is Hamas, we know you are in there. We are going to kill you.’”¹

A 21-second video quickly went viral, capturing hundreds of protesters — some waving Palestinian flags — chanting in rhyme: “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” The demonstration took place outside Goldie, a vegan falafel spot run by Israeli-born celebrity chef Michael Solomonov, best known for his acclaimed Israeli-inspired restaurant Zahav.

Solomonov’s connection to Israel is deeply personal: His brother, an IDF soldier, was killed by Hezbollah snipers in 2003, a loss that he says briefly led him to consider enlisting himself. Rather than take up arms, Solomonov turned to cooking, using food as a way to share with the world a side of Israel that “had nothing to do with politics.”

And isn’t that precisely the point? There is no shortage of valid criticism one could make about the governments of China, Mexico, or Russia — just to name a few — yet you never see activists storming Chinese, Mexican, or Russian restaurants, chanting slogans, smashing windows, or posting boycott lists because of political disagreements. The restaurants themselves — symbols of culture, community, and daily life — remain untouched, even when broader conflicts exist in their countries of origin.

Jewish and Israeli establishments, by contrast, are singled out not for what they do in the kitchen, but for the identities and affiliations of their owners, their cuisine, and even the simple fact that they exist. This selective targeting exposes the campaign for what it is: not genuine protest, but a coordinated effort to intimidate, silence, and erase Jewish and Israeli presence in public spaces.

Certainly, attacking Jewish and Israeli restaurants goes beyond harming a business; it communicates that visible expressions of Jewish culture and community should shrink or disappear from public spaces. These restaurants are often among the few places where Jewish heritage is celebrated openly, from traditional recipes to cultural events. When they are vandalized, boycotted, or harassed, it sends a chilling message: that public expressions of identity can make people targets. The effect is a pressure to retreat, to remain invisible, and to limit cultural expression, which undermines the vibrancy and diversity of the communities they help sustain.

These attacks are not without precedent. History is filled with campaigns aimed at erasing Jewish presence through economic or cultural targeting, and the pattern is chillingly familiar. In 1933, just a few months after the Nazis came to power in Germany, the regime orchestrated a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses, stationing SA storm troopers outside shops and urging customers not to “buy from Jews,” a coordinated effort that marked the beginning of increasingly repressive measures against Jewish economic life.

Five years later, the orchestrated violence of Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”) saw thousands of Jewish businesses and shops vandalized or destroyed across Germany and Austria as part of a state-backed pogrom. Long before that, economic antisemitism flared in early 20th-century Europe, such as the Limerick boycott in Ireland, where Jews were pressured and intimidated out of business and families compelled to leave their homes. Other antisemitic riots and pogroms saw markets and shops owned by Jews looted and burned, such as attacks in South Wales in 1911, when more than 20 Jewish-owned businesses were ransacked during a wave of violence.

Today’s perpetrators cloak their actions in political or moralistic language, claiming justification in global conflicts while targeting restaurants, cafés, and bakeries. But the effect echoes those earlier campaigns: intimidation, marginalization, and the threat of erasure. What began as boycotts and lists has increasingly taken the form of harassment, vandalism, and physical assault — continuities that should alarm any society that values cultural expression and the safety of its minority communities.

Thankfully, Jewish and Israeli restaurants have also seen an outpouring of support since October 7th. Steve Cook, the business partner of Michael Solomonov, said that since the war broke out, “we are busier than ever. … We all know how challenging it is out there right now. Fortunately, for us it is a lot of noise. Our customers have doubled down in their support for us.”

Last Friday afternoon, hundreds of people turned out to support Breads Bakery as the city’s Jewish community rallied behind the beloved bakery. The line stretched the length of the block on Broadway, with customers wearing stickers that said “Zionist,” chatting, and holding Israeli flags.

Shai Davidai, a Jewish community activist who came to prominence with his harsh criticism of antisemitism at Columbia University, where he was a professor until he resigned last July, was among the people at Breads Bakery.

“We need to show Jewish businesses that we have their backs,” he said. “We came as a community, not just to support them financially, but to show them that the Jewish and the Zionist community is here.”²

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1. “Non-Jewish Diner Owner Received Boycotts and Death Threats for Backing Israel.” Aish.

2. “NYC Jews line up for Israeli bakery after employees’ charges of ‘genocide support’.” Times of Israel.