Jewish Restaurant Boycott Backfires Amid Massive Support
Pro-Palestinian protesters face overwhelming support as Jewish restaurants see record crowds on Kristallnacht anniversary.
3 min read
On the eve of the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, a planned boycott of Jewish restaurants in Philadelphia turned into an overwhelming show of solidarity. Pro-Palestinian cyclists from Philly Bike On Your Left and allied groups targeted Jewish eateries in Rittenhouse Square, but hundreds of counterprotesters and customers overwhelmed the protest, turning the boycott into a massive act of support.
The protest, which included flyers screaming, “No business for Zionists,” and branding owners “disgusting humans,” was met with fierce resistance. Police estimated the bike contingent at around 200, with total protesters around 300. However, the response was swift and strong. Hundreds of counterprotesters and customers from across the East Coast arrived, creating long lines for hours. Customers waited 90 minutes or more just to grab a bowl of mac and cheese or a falafel.
Supporters waved Israeli flags, flipped off the riders, and shouted, “This is America, not Nazi Germany” and “Shame!” One New Yorker who drove down called the boycott “the biggest bust” imaginable and joked the protesters had turned the restaurants into “rock stars.”
Jewish organizations led the charge. The ADL urged people to eat at the targeted spots. The Jewish Federation pushed a food crawl and told people to spend money rather than argue. Synagogues placed big group orders. Billboards from JewBelong told the city to “boycott the boycott ride.” Local rabbis, the AJC, StandWithUs and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum all condemned the ride as straight-up Jew-hatred.
Owners felt the love. Mac Mart’s Marti Lieberman said the outpouring was overwhelming and that everyone remains welcome. Huda’s Yehuda Sichel explained why the boycott hit close to home.
It’s pretty personal to me. Not okay. My grandfather witnessed [Kristallnacht] as a 10-year-old child in Germany … people singling out Jewish businesses, using Zionism as a euphemism to attack Jewish people is not okay.
The timing was impossible to ignore. November 9-10 marks the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 Nazi pogrom across Germany and Austria. After a Jewish teenager shot a German diplomat in Paris, Nazi leaders used the killing as the excuse for a coordinated night of terror. Mobs burned more than a thousand synagogues, smashed the windows of roughly 7,500 Jewish businesses, ransacked homes and schools, and killed at least 91 Jews. Some 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and shipped to concentration camps. The broken glass littering the streets gave the night its name. It was the open declaration that legal discrimination was giving way to organized violence, a clear step toward the Holocaust.
In Philly, the opposite happened. A boycott meant to cost Jewish restaurants business instead filled their registers and filled the streets with people who refused to look away.
Three people were arrested during a pro-Palestinian bicycle protest in Philadelphia on Sunday.
Wow 🤩 – look at the lines outside of the Jewish owned eateries being boycotted today by the “Free Palestine” crowd in Philadelphia!
Philly 'Kristallnacht' protests at Jewish-owned businesses drowned out, shouted down by huge crowds https://t.co/XcNBMGFHNT pic.twitter.com/Md9VDYrrTs
Source: Daily Wire
