A Jewish family was kicked out of Jerusalem Coffee House in Oakland, California, on Saturday. Their crime? Husband Jonathan Hirsch wore a hat emblazoned with the Star of David.
In an infuriating video shared on X by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area, a man who purports to be the Jerusalem Coffee House’s owner asks Hirsch if he is “a Zionist” and claims that Hirsch is “causing a disruption.” Growing angry, the owner tells Hirsch, “This is a private business. You’re being asked to leave.”
Hirsch asks the man to stop screaming around his son before confirming that he is being asked to leave because of his hat.
“This is a violent hat, and you need to leave,” the owner replies.
After Hirsch insists that a business cannot force a member of a protected class to leave its premises, the owner responds, “I’m not asking you to leave because of that.” Raising his voice, the owner asks Hirsch repeatedly, “Are you a Zionist?”
As if the impetus for their decision to stop at Jerusalem Coffee House has any bearing on his treatment by the establishment, Hirsch explains to an individual only briefly shown on camera that he was directed to the coffeehouse by a business across the street that did not offer public restrooms and coffee. His five-year-old son needed to use the bathroom, and his wife wanted a coffee.
The unidentified individual explains to Hirsch that he “walked into an establishment owned and run by Palestinians.”
Interjecting, Hirsch asks, “That, what, does not allow Jews?”
“They may not,” the individual states. “And if they may not, that’s not on us, and it’s not on you.”
“It absolutely is,” Hirsch responds. “You can’t deny service to Jews.”
When the family departs at the request of police, employees pepper them with insults, repeatedly calling them “sharmut,” Arabic for “b****.”
“Why would you not educate yourself?” a woman in an apron asks.
The coffee house employees may soon be getting an education of their own, given the swift outcry that resulted after a video of Hirsch’s treatment hit the internet.
“This is one of the most clear-cut cases of anti-Jewish discrimination I have ever seen in the Bay Area,” Jeremy Russell of the Jewish Community Relations Council told Henry K. Lee, a crime reporter with KTVU.
KTVU also cited David Levine, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, who stated that “to deny somebody service in a place of public accommodation on the basis of what here sure looks like religion, national origin and the like, is simply not allowed under state laws.”
Levine is likely referring to the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which “provides protection from discrimination by all business establishments in California,” including restaurants.
The Jerusalem Coffee House has come under media fire before, because of its inflammatory new menu. On offer is “Iced In Tea Fada,” a verbal play on the intifadas, two periods of violent terrorist attacks on Israelis that resulted in around 1,000 deaths.
“Sweet Sinwar” is named after former Hamas leader and architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack Yahya Sinwar. Though idolized by anti-Israel activists who decry civilian deaths in Gaza, Sinwar told Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in an April 11 letter that civilian casualties “are necessary sacrifices,” glorifying a death toll that would “infuse life into the veins of this nation.” Before spending two decades in Israeli prisons for murdering two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinian civilians, Sinwar was known as the Butcher of Khan Younis “for his role in interrogating, torturing, and killing alleged Palestinian informants for Israel,” per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
As Israel fights a literal and propaganda war in Gaza and manages threats from Iran and its proxies, American Jews face increasing numbers of violent and discriminatory incidents at home.
On Tuesday, a “visibly Jewish man” was “slashed in the face” in Brooklyn, New York, the Jerusalem Post reported. An Orthodox Jewish man was shoved by an assailant while walking along a Brooklyn street in a video time-stamped Monday.
On Saturday, an Orthodox Jewish man in a kippah was shot while walking to a synagogue in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago leaders continue to express sorrow about the incident without identifying the victim’s religion or the utterance of his alleged attacker, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, who shouted “Allahu Akhbar” while engaging in a subsequent shootout with police officers.
Speaking to the confluence of hate as well as Hirsch’s ousting from a restaurant, Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of Orthodox Union, told the Washington Examiner, “When these kinds of ‘minor’ acts of hate are tolerated, it results in the normalization of hate and of antisemitic acts. We have seen this play out over and over again. Society and law enforcement need to respond with foresight.”
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More than ever, U.S. leaders must take a decisive stand for tolerance and provide increased security for the Jewish community. While political pundits use Holocaust terminology as a cudgel leading up to a contentious election, onlookers would do well to recall that the eventual genocide of millions of Jews was first enabled by their ostracism in and subsequent removal from society.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News and the host of The Afghanistan Project, which takes a deep dive into the tragedy wrought in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.