Rabbi Yonah Gross is the rabbi of Congregation Beth Hamedrosh in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, and serves as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Vice President for the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV)
On Sunday, November 8, on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a group calling itself Philly Bike On Your Left plans to gather in Rittenhouse Square for a “Boycott Ride" past six Philadelphia restaurants and food shops. Its flyer declares “No business for Zionists" and “These Zionist establishments must go."
Don’t be fooled. This isn't a disagreement with Israeli government policy. It is a campaign to identify, stigmatize and drive out Jewish-owned businesses, turning the City of Brotherly Love into a place where Jewish business owners are made to feel unwelcome.
On social media the organizers have been even more explicit. They urge supporters to “show these zio business owners that we see them for the disgusting human beings they are." Their targets include Dizengoff, K’Far Cafe and Goldie, restaurants associated with Israeli-American chef Michael Solomonov and his partner Steve Cook. But they also include Huda and Mac Mart, both owned by lifelong American Jews, and Schlesinger’s, a family-owned American restaurant older than the modern State of Israel.
The organizers offer no coherent explanation for why these businesses belong on a list of supposed supporters of Israeli policy. Their inclusion raises the obvious question of whether Jewish identity itself is being treated as grounds for suspicion.
People are entitled to criticize the Israeli government. Despite the long and ugly history of anti-Jewish boycotts, they’re even entitled to boycott businesses whose owners support Israeli policies. That is a political expression, even when we find it repugnant. But that freedom doesn’t excuse demonizing or intimidating people because of who they are.
The accusations against Israel go far beyond legitimate criticism. I reject the characterization of Israel’s actions as genocide. Where are the campaigns against Russia for its war in Ukraine, against China for its treatment of the Uyghurs, or against Iran for repressing its own people? Selective outrage alone doesn't prove antisemitism. But when Israel is singled out for extraordinary condemnation while other countries committing serious abuses receive nothing comparable, we should ask whether something other than concern for human rights is at work.
And when Jewish businesses with no apparent connection to Israel are swept into the campaign, that suspicion becomes unmistakable. This is not simply opposition to Israel. It is Jew-hatred.
The Bible offers a precedent. Lavan’s sons complain that “Yaakov has taken all that was our father’s, and from what was our father’s he has made all this wealth" (Genesis 31:1). Yaakov had worked honestly for twenty years while Lavan repeatedly cheated him. His prosperity came from his own labor, not from theft.
That is an enduring feature of antisemitism. Honest Jewish success is recast as exploitation, and accusations against particular Jews are extended to the entire community. The boycott organizers have made the same leap. They accuse the targeted businesses of supporting what they call occupation and genocide, but offer no factual evidence. The label comes first, and the justification is secondary.
In 1933, Nazi Germany organized a boycott of Jewish businesses, posting stormtroopers beside signs urging Germans not to buy from Jews. On November 9 and 10, 1938, came Kristallnacht. Jewish businesses, homes and synagogues were destroyed and looted, and thousands of Jewish men were sent to concentration camps. The Nazis then blamed the Jews themselves.
The circumstances and scale are obviously different. But the warning signs are worth recognizing. Publicly marking Jews as undesirable, branding their businesses illegitimate and demanding their removal from public life are expressions of a dangerous prejudice with a long history.
In the Book of Esther, Haman maligns “a particular nation, dispersed and isolated among the nations," whose customs differ from everyone else’s. He says that it is not worthwhile for the king to tolerate them (Esther 3:8). Haman's complaint was not about the actions of particular Jews. He portrayed an entire people as alien and intolerable simply because they were different.
As a rabbi who has served Philadelphia’s Jewish community for many years, I find the targeting of neighborhood businesses particularly troubling. Philadelphia's leadership and Philadelphians themselves must make clear that all of us belong here, or none of us are safe. Every Philadelphian should be able to open a restaurant, employ workers, and serve customers, without having to answer for a foreign government - or for being Jewish.