After 3 sleepy years, ‘Rip Van Jews’ punch back

As hatred and bigotry against the Jewish minority become normalized throughout society, it’s clear Jews must prepare for more such challenges.”

If you’re looking for signs of resolve and a determination to resist antisemitism on the part of American Jewry, then Philadelphia was the place to be on Nov. 8. Still, any satisfaction about the response of Jews to an effort to intimidate them on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht with a “boycott ride” against Israel needs to be tempered by one realization.

Local Jews stood up for themselves and their community in a way that did them great credit. The would-be boycotters of Jews had to realize that they had pedaled themselves into a public-relations fiasco. But in past confrontations, the Jew-haters were rightly perceived as isolated extremists whose actions and ideology most Americans saw as beyond the pale. That cannot be said of the anti-Israel group calling itself Philly Bike on Your Left.

Their hateful rhetoric about Jews and genocide is routinely published in mainstream publications and other news outlets, and has popped up seemingly everywhere in social and academic circles. Members of Congress can be heard echoing the same antisemitic blood libels about Israel and characterizing the efforts of American Jews to advocate for the US-Israel alliance with tropes that resemble those in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

That is a bitter truth that should be kept in mind, even as Americans celebrate the response of Philadelphia Jewry.

The group sought to target Jewish- and Israeli-owned restaurants with a “boycott ride” demonstration. But the community was prepared, and Jews turned out in force to show that they wouldn’t take such treatment lying down.

Jews showed up

That the demonstration was scheduled for the eve of the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht — the Nazi pogrom that targeted Jews and their homes, businesses and synagogues on the night of Nov. 9-10, 1938 — only added to the local Jewish community’s sense of urgency.

In response, as I personally witnessed, thousands of Jews — many acting on their own, without being part of any particular group — patronized the six targeted eateries, some waiting hours to be served.

Hundreds of others showed up at Rittenhouse Square — the boycott ride’s rallying point — to confront a motley assortment of a few dozen boycotters in masks and keffiyehs, waving Palestinian flags, a few of whom claimed to be Jewish.

The Jewish counterdemonstrators, clearly angry about such flagrant Jew-hatred and eager to show their displeasure, vastly outnumbered the bikers. Despite the best efforts of police to keep the two groups separated, the situation got ugly at times, with taunts turning to pushing and shoving before the cops cleared a path for the anti-Israel bikers to escape and begin their ride around the city.

But wherever they pedaled, accompanied by some sympathizers on foot, they were greeted by large numbers of Jews waving Israeli flags, chanting and singing their defiance, and demanding that the bikers have the guts to take off their masks and show their faces.

This was a profoundly encouraging development, and one in marked contrast to most of the responses of American Jews in the three years since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks on Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023. With a few exceptions, Jews have largely failed to aggressively respond to the pro-Hamas mobs that overran city streets and college campuses.

Imperative to respond

The infamous “shelter in place” advisory put out by Columbia University and echoed by the school’s Hillel chapter in April 2024, when anti-Israel demonstrators took over part of the campus, was not an isolated phenomenon. There was, of course, at least one large pro-Israel demonstration: the mass rally held in Washington, DC, in November 2023. But as a general rule, the Jewish response was to stay home rather than confront those who chanted for Jewish genocide (“From the river to the sea”) and terrorism against Jews wherever they live (“Globalize the intifada”).

Whether justified or not, it gave the country the impression that Jews were either unwilling to express solidarity with the nearly half of the world’s Jewish population that lives in Israel, or that they lacked the courage to answer those who singled them out for abuse and intimidation.

Why, then, did Greater Philadelphia Jewry turn out in such numbers this time?

Perhaps it was the Kristallnacht anniversary and the obvious parallels to Nazi efforts to target Jewish businesses. Previous “pro-Palestinian” marches had attempted to target some Jewish-owned restaurants. But the prospect of a seemingly more organized effort to re-enact the tragic events of the 1930s — in the city where American independence was born and where the Liberty Bell, inscribed with a Torah verse (Leviticus 25) — was just too much for many people to accept passively.

Nor should one dismiss the fact that this particular dispute involved food — something that resonates more with American Jews than rhetoric about Zionism — even if only one of the six targeted restaurants, a falafel place called Goldie that had been an early target back in December 2023, is certified kosher.

According to a later report in the Philadelphia Inquirer, an anonymous spokesperson for the boycotters denied any knowledge of Kristallnacht. But there was no denying the vile nature of the boycott. Though the group falsely claimed it had chosen its targets because they were somehow connected to the Israeli military, the only common denominator among the six restaurants was Jewish ownership and cuisine seen as appealing to the Jewish community. So the Nazi analogy wasn’t confined to the calendar; it would have applied to such an action no matter what day of the year it occurred.

To their credit, local political leaders, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, condemned the event, the latter saying that “singling out businesses because their owners are Jewish is unacceptable and has no place in our city.” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) rightly derided the boycott as a “sick parade of rank antisemitism.” Even left-wing Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner criticized the plan, warning those who dislike Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s war against Hamas that “the leadership of the Israeli government is your target, ... as opposed to blaming all Israelis, or all Jewish Israelis, or all Jews all over the world for their beliefs, for their faith, for their ethnicity.”

Not like Skokie

At various points while Jews milled about upscale Rittenhouse Square awaiting the start of the day’s events, the conversation turned to what happened in the late 1970s in Skokie, Illinois, and whether that was analogous to what Jews were experiencing now.

The planned march of American neo-Nazis through the Chicago suburb, home to a large population of Holocaust survivors, is an important chapter in American Jewish history. After prolonged legal battles, in which Jews played prominent roles on both sides, the march never took place. Still, the trauma of survivors who feared a replay of their tragic past lingers in the community’s collective memory.

The uniforms and swastikas of the would-be Skokie marchers evoke the sort of imagery that haunts the Jewish imagination in a way that masks, keffiyehs and Palestinian flags do not — at least not yet. But the dilemma faced by those who turned out in Philadelphia on the eve of Kristallnacht is far worse than that of the embattled Skokie survivors.

There is a great deal of difference between what didn’t happen in Skokie and what did happen in Philadelphia — and it has nothing to do with the fact that the former played out in the courts rather than the streets.

It’s that for all the anger the Nazis provoked, they were a tiny, isolated group of extremists widely despised by virtually all of American society. But though the Philly boycott riders clearly miscalculated in their choice of targets and timing, they are far from isolated.

It’s true that the owners of these restaurants don’t deserve to be treated this way just because they are Jewish. Nor is any American Jew responsible for the actions of Israel’s government.

Peddling lies about Israel and Jews

But the problem with the boycott isn’t only that it targeted innocent people. It’s that the line the boycotters are peddling — that Jews are committing “genocide” or supporting an “apartheid state” — is a lie. The growing support in American society for isolating Israel and opposing its efforts to defend its population against genocidal Palestinian terrorists and their Iranian sponsors is based on misinformation that has been mainstreamed in the corporate media. The election of open antisemites like Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed and many others on the far left is the product of the normalization of Jew-hatred in journalism and popular culture.

Under these circumstances, the events of the past three years — including the murders of Jews in Washington, DC, and Boulder, Colorado, the arson attack on Shapiro’s official residence in Harrisburg on Passover and numerous other incidents around the globe — are what happens when such “pro-Palestinian” rhetoric is seen as acceptable discourse. So, too, is the fact that so many Jewish institutions have had to be fortified in response to constant threats of violence. All of it is the natural result of the widespread acceptance of these falsehoods about Israel and the antisemitic tropes that accompany them.

As long as such misinformation is ubiquitous in the allegedly responsible press, as well as on popular podcasts and social media, the public can’t be surprised that incidents such as the boycott ride happen. In fact, Americans should be prepared for many more such incidents in the coming months and years.

We can only hope that other communities will respond as Philadelphia’s Jews did when the need arises. But no one should pretend that this small victory is a sign that the beliefs of these Jew-haters are being marginalized or thrown back into the fever swamps of the far left and far right, where they belong. As hatred and bigotry against the Jewish minority become normalized throughout society, it’s clear Jews must prepare for more such challenges.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.