An Israeli-born celebrity chef says he and his family are under attack in the US as part of a hate campaign targeting him for his Israeli identity and service in the IDF.
Guy Vaknin, a well-known chef who appeared on Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen and ABC’s Shark Tank, told The New York Post that anonymous messages have included threats against his young children. One read: “Beautiful child. Did you feel bad when you went to kill the Palestine children? Hope your child doesn’t die like the children you killed in Palestine. You’re done.”
Vaknin said such threats now arrive “daily,” accusing him of being singled out for not condemning Israel as it fights Hamas, the terror group that massacred 1,200 people on October 7, 2023.
The 42-year-old served in the IDF before immigrating to the US two decades ago. Today he owns eight vegan restaurants in New York under his City Roots Hospitality brand. But antisemites have made his success a target.
Vandals have defaced his restaurants with “Free Gaza” graffiti. On September 4, the group Vegans for Palestine launched a boycott campaign, attacking Vaknin’s IDF service and accusing him of “vegan-washing” Israeli “crimes.”
Vaknin warned that such campaigns hurt not only him but also his 200 employees. In a statement this week, he condemned the “hateful online attacks,” stressing: “Other than my place of birth, which is Israel, I have no connection to the ongoing conflict. My political views have never been shared publicly, and it is unfair and destructive to target our family and livelihood over assumptions.”
The boycott activists dismissed his call for peace, accusing him of “both-siding the suffering.” They promoted claims from vegan influencer Sabrina Dahlmann, who alleged he used Arab slurs. Vaknin rejected the accusation, saying he had only shared videos from Israeli friends near the Gaza border whose communities were devastated by Hamas on October 7.
He said he and Dahlmann had even shared a meal and seemed reconciled until her recent social media posts reignited the campaign. “As I put the statement out there, all of this blew up. I’m getting threats here, boycotts there. It just became worse — the mob woke up, I guess,” Vaknin said.
Neither Dahlmann nor Vegans for Palestine responded to requests for comment.