“FORM LINE HERE TO SUPPORT GENOCIDE” blared the black spray-painted graffiti scrawled on the sidewalk in front of Effy’s Café, an Israeli eatery on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
That was in May 2024. But since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and the war in Gaza that followed, Israeli, Jewish, and kosher restaurants around the US have faced a wave of harassment, vandalism, and intimidation – a mix of obvious antisemitic acts, anti-Israel sentiment, and BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction) efforts.
No place for hatred
Last month, an Israeli tourist wearing a kippah was attacked outside Mr. Broadway, a kosher deli in midtown Manhattan. And on Yom Kippur, vandals graffitied the words “Zionist Food” on the storefront of Safta’s restaurant in New York City.
In June, vandals struck Manny’s, an Israeli-owned “community-focused meeting and learning place in the heart of San Francisco,” smearing “Die Zion,” “Intifada,” and “Death 2 Israel” across its glass façade.
“It was violent. It was antisemitic. And it was heartbreaking,” owner Manny Yekutiel wrote the next day on his website. “This kind of hatred has no place in this city, the city that’s given me everything, and it has no place within the progressive movement.”
But it does seem to have a place: Two weeks later, in Brookline, Massachusetts, a brick with the words “Free Palestine” crashed through the window of The Butcherie kosher grocery.
“This was not a statement of protest; it was an attack on the Jewish community,” store manager Gili Nahary wrote on Facebook in June 2025.
“This was not about policy or politics. It was an act meant to threaten, to isolate, and to target us for who we are.”
Brookline Police Chief Jennifer Paster called the incident “a disturbing act of hate and antisemitic vandalism.”
In Washington, DC, the Char Bar kosher deli had its windows smashed in November 2024 on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogrom that marked the start of the Holocaust.
“This was not a dumb antisemite … It was quite a symbolic act of hate because of what happened and how it happened and when it happened,” Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told the Washington Jewish Week.
Victims of BDS
Last week, another DC kosher eatery didn’t survive the fallout from the war – and the ramped-up BDS efforts.
Shouk, a decade-old kosher vegetarian chain, announced it was closing its last two restaurants after a months-long boycott campaign.
“We found ourselves caught in the crosscurrents of a toxic political climate surrounding the Israel-Gaza war,” a statement from the owners read.
“More and more, customers have chosen to avoid businesses connected to Israel. We heard from long-time regulars who stopped visiting us for these reasons.”
From coast to coast, Jewish restaurants are all in the crosshairs.
In Los Angeles, a month after October 7, graffiti appeared under the Jewish cartoons in Canter’s Deli parking lot, reading “How many dead in the name of greed?”
In Philadelphia, protesters surrounded chef Michael Solomonov’s vegan falafel shop Goldie in December 2023, shouting “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide – we charge you with genocide.”
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro condemned the incident: “A mob came and protested a restaurant simply because it’s owned by a Jewish person. That’s blatant antisemitism.”
On the frontlines
While antisemitic incidents have surged nationwide since October 7, restaurants occupy a uniquely vulnerable space: public, visible, and instantly searchable.
Roughly one in 10 antisemitic protest incidents in 2024 targeted businesses, including restaurants, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in 2024. They tallied 9,354 incidents that year, with more than one-quarter of them classified as anti-Israel protests.
“Since October 7, the US has witnessed a sharp rise in antisemitism, which has permeated everyday spaces, including restaurants and other storefront businesses. Some have displayed anti-Israel or antisemitic signage, while others have openly refused service to Jewish or Israeli patrons,” said James Pasch, the Anti-Defamation League’s vice president of litigation.
“Discriminating against individuals based on their faith or beliefs is not only unacceptable but potentially illegal,” he said. “ADL will continue fighting back against incidents of antisemitic discrimination through the courts, to protect and defend the Jewish community.”
No tolerance
Even in cities known for their tolerance, such as New York, businesses are not immune to vandalism: Last month, someone graffitied the bathroom at Purple Waves, an Israeli-owned zero-waste café in Harlem.
“It was targeted at me as a Jewish Israeli woman,” owner Sharon Rueveni wrote on Instagram. “This is antisemitism, and it is unacceptable in New York City in 2025.”
In Park Slope, Brooklyn, the Israeli restaurant Miriam was vandalized in June with the words “GENOCIDE CUISINE” and “ISRAEL STEALS CULTURE.”
“Don’t think that everything people say is the truth,” co-owner Ran Hasid told media outlets at the time.
“I hope they bring all the hostages back and there will be no more war ever again,” he said.
Now that the live hostages are back in Israel, and a ceasefire has been set in motion, it is unclear what the future of the anti-Israel movement will be.
Proud Israelis
Israeli-born restaurateur Ori Degani believes that Jewish/Israeli business owners should not back down. At the height of the backlash after October 7, he and his partner briefly changed the menu at their three New York uptown cafes from “Israeli” to “Mediterranean.”
“The truth is, I am a little ashamed,” he now admits. “But now I don’t give a f*** anymore.”
Degani told The Jerusalem Report that he has watched customers walk out after seeing Hebrew on the menu or hearing Hebrew being spoken.
“A family of five came from the mosque, looked at the menu for 20 minutes, and left,” he recounted.
He got some negative reviews on Google from Arabs that changed his rating.
“I spoke to my parents in Israel – they said it’s strategically smart – but I said I’m done with that. We’ve been hiding for so many years.”
After months of deliberations, he and his business partner have decided to restore the Israeli label and keep cooking the food he loves.
“People don’t understand there are Jews from Iran, Iraq, Morocco. At the end of the day, our food is Arab-based food. And we use food to connect people,” Degani said.
“If someone wants to boycott us because of who we are, that’s on them. I’d rather lose money than lose who I am.”■