On Sunday, November 8, on the eve of the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, a group calling itself Philly Bike On Your Left gathered in Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia. Its flyer, which had been circulating since late October, read “No business for Zionists!” over the names of six Jewish restaurants, each one circled and crossed out in red. Three belonged to CookNSolo, the restaurant group of Israeli-American chef Michael Solomonov, the man behind Zahav, which has been named the best restaurant in America. The other three targets were Mac Mart, Huda, and Schlesinger’s Deli. Schlesinger’s owner, Allan Domb, told CBS he believes he made the list because he donated to the local Jewish Federation after October 7. That’s the “Zionism.” He gave money to Jews. The organizers claim they oppose antisemitism and were only targeting support for Israel. But you cannot publish a list of Jewish shops, draw a red line through each one, schedule the ride for the eve of Kristallnacht, have it end with multiple protesters assaulting people, including one Jewish victim, and then act shocked when people do a little pattern recognition. As B’nai B’rith said:
Organizers had called the owners “disgusting humans” and declared, “these Zionist establishments must go.” This was not a protest of policy. It was a public campaign to intimidate Jews and drive them from their livelihoods because of who they are. If any other community’s businesses had been singled out and paraded past by a group demanding they leave, people would be shouting from the rooftops, and rightly so. Why are Jews uniquely acceptable targets? We have seen this before […] during Kristallnacht. The persecution that led there began with boycotts and the singling out of Jewish businesses. We cannot ignore the echoes.
Thankfully, local leaders condemned the protest. Governor Josh Shapiro called it “blatant antisemitic targeting.” So did Senator John Fetterman, Senator Dave McCormick, and Mayor Cherelle Parker. It’s worth noting that only McCormick is Republican. Even District Attorney Larry Krasner, who is not exactly known for siding with cops against activists — he’s one of the country’s most prominent progressive, criminal-justice-reform prosecutors — denounced the event and said Kristallnacht “is very painful for many people who lost chunks of their family tree, and for anyone who cares about other human beings.” He added, “The leadership of the Israeli government is your target. Isn’t that how this is supposed to work? As opposed to blaming all Israelis or all Jewish Israelis or all Jews all over the world?”
Even the Philadelphia interfaith pro-Palestinian group, the Prayers for Peace Alliance, eviscerated the protest for targeting Jewish shops. “To be effective, boycotts must be targeted toward companies with the greatest complicity in injustice,” the group said, adding that the protest “does not align with the priorities of the anti-genocide and anti-occupation movement.” They added, “The decision to target only Jewish-owned businesses threatens to undermine trust within this broad, intersectional movement, which includes many American Jews.” Hell, even Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gaza-born activist who has lost family in this war, called the Philadelphia ride “a pointless hate rally that did nothing for Palestinians” and urged all Philadelphians to go eat at those restaurants. If I may offer a word of counsel here, when your own side tells you that you’ve gone too far, you’ve gone too far.