On the menu today: Spitting hot fire over an angry mob gathering around a Jewish-owned restaurant in downtown Philadelphia and accusing the falafel-making owners of committing genocide — and wondering how long it will take our president and first lady, who describe themselves as honorary Philadelphians, to notice.
Unrest in Philly
An angry mob of young people chanting for an “Intifada revolution” marched through the streets of Philadelphia Sunday night. I’m sure in the coming day or two, we’ll hear some nonsense about how those protesters meant “Intifada revolution” only metaphorically, or were calling for an intifada in thinking, or some other lame spin. But those of us who aren’t doing public relations to defend the reputations of these punks in the streets know darn well what an intifada means: an uprising or rebellion.
That’s the definition in Merriam-Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica. The Cambridge dictionary specifies, “a violent act of opposition by the Palestinian people to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” As The Economist noted in an article about the term in 2017, “Violence is a hallmark of an intifada.”
Do not let anyone tell you that those kids were chanting for peace. Calling for an “intifada” is calling for a violent uprising. Now let’s ask the more than fair question: a violent uprising against whom? Israel? These kids are about 5,700 miles from Israel.
The mob of protesters then gathered around Goldie, a falafel shop co-owned by a Jewish Israeli-American, and chanted, “Goldie, Goldie you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”
Here’s the account from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Hundreds of protesters marched through Center City and University City to show their support for Gaza and demand a permanent cease-fire. It’s the latest in sustained local efforts aiming to call attention to the war and its fallout.
Protesters were critical of some local businesses, including Goldie in Center City, an Israeli-style falafel shop. Goldie is part of the CookNSolo group, which is co-owned by Israeli-born Michael Solomonov. Last month, a small group protested outside CookNSolo’s Laser Wolf in Fishtown, and in October, an Instagram post by the Philly Palestine Coalition called for a boycott of several Philadelphia restaurants, including CookNSolo’s.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro responded to a video of protestors chanting in front of Goldie, calling the stop in front of the business a “blatant act of antisemitism — not a peaceful protest.”
“A restaurant was targeted and mobbed because its owner is Jewish and Israeli,” said Shapiro on X, formerly Twitter, adding he’s reached out to owner Solomonov to share his support.
Now . . . “protesters were critical of some local businesses”? Boy, Inquirer, that’s really soft-pedalling an angry mob chanting that the proprietors are guilty of genocide. And it may well have been more than threatening chants. The local CBS affiliate reported, “The group of protestors is accused of shouting antisemitic remarks, and stickers with pro-Palestinian slogans were reportedly left on the doors, though when CBS Philadelphia checked back early Monday morning they had been removed.”
Our Zach Kessel reports, “Solomonov, born in Israel and raised in Pittsburgh, focused on Italian cuisine at the start of his career. That changed in 2003, when his brother, David, who had volunteered for the Israel Defense Forces, was killed by snipers on the Lebanese border. Solomonov now owns a variety of Israeli- and Jewish-style restaurants, mainly in Philadelphia.”
Second, the aforementioned boycott of the restaurant chain, organized by Philly Palestine Coalition, was driven by an allegedly provocative statement by restauranteur Steven Starr. The allegedly provocative statement is as follows:
“This attack is not just against Israel but against all Jewish people,” it said. “Hamas is an enemy of Christians, Hindus, minorities, LGBTQ, atheists, people of color, and anyone who differs from their extremist idealist ideology that all Jews must die. We all have skin in the game and must show our support for Israel.”
Got that? That’s what the Philly Palestine Coalition finds so outrageous and deserving of boycotts and threatening mobs. All that statement did was denounce Hamas, not the Palestinians, and support Israel.
Solomonov also announced “he would donate 100 percent of all sales to Friends of United Hatzalah, a nonprofit emergency medical service.”
The guys running the restaurant are paying for emergency medical services and denouncing Hamas, and those protesters in the streets hate their guts because of it.
Those protesters are objectively pro-Hamas. You don’t see them accusing Hamas of genocide. No, it’s the falafel-making guy in Center City Philadelphia whom they declare guilty of the worst crime imaginable. The whole Middle East is on fire, Hamas militants filmed themselves killing people, and these young idiots have concluded the guy making Tahini shakes and shawarma fries is the villain in the story.
I would ask how some restauranteur is responsible for genocide, but there’s no point in looking for logic in the minds of these people. They just hate Jews and are looking for an excuse to be bullies. So-called “anti-Zionism” gives them the excuse they want.
The Philadelphia metro area is, by one count, home to the third-largest population of Jews in the country.
So, to refresh, we’re now at the stage where “supporting Palestine” and yet another BS “cease-fire” where only one side ceases fire includes marching in a mob in the night and targeting Jewish-owned businesses. The disturbing historical parallels couldn’t have been any more explicit unless the organizers had called the protest “Broken Glass Night.”
Beyond the governor’s criticism of the protesters, local congressman Brendan Boyle declared, “I can’t believe I even have to say this but targeting businesses simply because they’re Jewish owned is despicable. Philadelphia stands against this sort of harassment and hate.”
Does Philadelphia stand against this sort of harassment and hate? It doesn’t sound like anybody got arrested. There’s no police presence discernable in that video of the protesters chanting. No one’s keeping the mob back from the restaurant or making sure customers and employees can enter and exit as needed. Apparently, no one stopped the crowd from leaving stickers with pro-Palestinian slogans on the doors. If there are any counter-protesters or anyone disapproving of the mob harassing the Jewish business, it’s not visible in that video. As far as we can tell, everyone else in downtown Philadelphia on a Sunday night wasn’t all that bothered by “this sort of harassment and hate.”
How safe do you think the restaurant owners, managers, employees, and customers feel this morning?
It’s good that Boyle vehemently disapproves of what that mob is doing. But doesn’t this warrant a bit more than a tweet? Boyle’s the local congressman. You would think he could pick up the phone and get the city government to take this seriously. (Sorry, I’ve just reached my limit with ineffective Boyles.)
Now, there’s another fair question in all of this: Where the hell is President Biden?
The president and Mrs. Biden like to think of themselves as honorary Philadelphians. They constantly remind us of their longstanding ties to the city, and the first lady often “wears her Eagles and Phillies garb in public and tweets photos of herself watching games in the private cabin on a government plane.” Biden set up the “Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement” in Washington in a partnership with the University of Pennsylvania. Biden likes to describe himself as “a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania,” even though he never taught any classes and his duties were vaguely defined. Next week, Biden is scheduled to visit Philadelphia for the ninth time this year.
The president also loves to tell us that he is, on some level, culturally Jewish. “I — you might say raised in the synagogues in my state. You think I’m kidding. I’m not,” Biden said during a call ahead of Rosh Hashanah earlier this year. And then, later in the month at a White House ceremony with rabbis, Biden declared, “with his predecessors — Rabbi Kraft and Rabbi Geffen — that’s where I received my education. I probably went to shul more than many of you did. You all think I’m kidding. He can tell you I’m not.”
Well, the Jews of the Philadelphia area experienced something pretty darn frightening last night, on top of all the other volcanic eruptions of antisemitism we’ve seen in the past two months. You might think that a president who keeps telling us he was raised in synagogues and went to shul more than some rabbis and who keeps insisting he’s not kidding might want to say something about that. You might think that a president would be really angry about that. After all, this is happening in his adopted hometown city and on his adopted campus.
As of 8:30 a.m. this morning, there’s no statement about the mob in Philadelphia on the White House Twitter account, the official presidential Twitter account, Joe Biden’s campaign account, or the first lady’s Twitter account. No official statement from the White House press office, either.
I have no doubt that, if and when the administration is asked for a statement, the White House will issue some fine, standard issue, pro forma declaration that harassing Jewish businesses is wrong. If Biden is ever asked about it on camera, he’ll offer some appropriate disapproval. But last night’s events just weren’t on Joe and Jill’s radar screen. As far as we can tell, no one in the first family’s immediate circle felt compelled to call or text and say, “Oh my gosh, did you see that crowd harassing a Jewish business, right in the middle of downtown Philadelphia?”
But if Goldie in Philadelphia had been targeted by those polo-shirt-wearing, tiki-torch-carrying, evolutionary missing links from Charlottesville, you know that would have been the lead story on the news from coast to coast, and we probably would have had a presidential statement by now. We might have even had a rare, late-night, on-camera appearance from the president.
It’s not that President Biden or the first lady approve of what happened outside Goldie last night. But it’s a hell of a lot easier to denounce your political enemies than to denounce people you see, or want to see, as political allies. It wasn’t a crowd of Republicans marching through the streets of Philadelphia last night. (Although I suppose Jussie Smollett may claim he heard someone shouting, “This is MAGA country!”)
Our friends in the Democratic Party are really, really comfortable denouncing antisemitism from the right. But when antisemitism from the left rears its ugly head, a whole lot of folks suddenly get a whole lot more squeamish.
ADDENDUM: Is there anything more tiresome than watching players on a losing football team insist what great practices they had the previous week? That’s great, but no one pays money to watch you guys practice. If you have great practices during the week and then stink on game day, you don’t get partial credit. They don’t count the losses less because everyone was feeling so good running drills a few days earlier.
“Jim, today’s edition of the Morning Jolt newsletter stinks.”
“Yeah, boss, but the rough drafts really looked good.”