Duvi Honig is Founder and CEO, Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce; Founder, JBizNews and JBiz Economic Summit.
What happened in Philadelphia should leave every American ashamed.
On the eve of Kristallnacht, the anniversary of the Nazi attacks on Jewish businesses, synagogues and homes, organized demonstrators targeted six Jewish-owned restaurants, calling for their exclusion from the city's business community.
The mayor condemned it. The attorney general condemned it. Police showed up. Hundreds of people came out to support the Jewish restaurants.
And now people are calling it a victory? For the hundreds who came to fight back, it is. But I call it one of the most embarrassing failures of American leadership.
What exactly did we win? The right to buy a sandwich at a Jewish restaurant while demonstrators demanded that Jewish businesses leave town?
We don't need another politician telling us antisemitism is unacceptable. We need those responsible for any criminal intimidation investigated, arrested when the evidence warrants it, and prosecuted. That is what accountability looks like.
Police reported three arrests during the demonstration, but none established criminal accountability for organizing the campaign against Jewish businesses. The organizers themselves have not been publicly reported as charged for criminal intimidation.
If the only consequence of targeting Jewish businesses is a round of speeches and condemnation, what message are we sending to the next group planning to do the same?
This is America, the country that promised religious freedom, equal protection and the right of every citizen to live and earn a living without discrimination. And I know something about fighting for those principles.
The Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce was part of the legal brief supporting the Colorado baker in the landmark Masterpiece Cakeshop case. We stood up for a Christian business owner's religious freedom, and the case resulted in a victory at the United States Supreme Court.
We did not stand up for him because he was Jewish. He wasn't. We stood up because we believed constitutional protections must apply to everyone.
Think about that. America's legal system took a dispute over a wedding cake all the way to the Supreme Court. Yet when Jewish-owned businesses are publicly singled out on the eve of Kristallnacht, we're expected to celebrate because politicians issued statements?
We fought for the rights of others. Now we demand that those same principles protect Jewish Americans. Equal protection cannot depend on which minority is under attack.
For generations, Jews came to America seeking the security, freedom and dignity denied to them across Europe. After the Holocaust, America's promise carried an even deeper meaning. A Jewish family could open a business, raise children, practice its religion and walk the streets without fearing the persecution that had devastated generations before them.
That was the American promise.
Now imagine being a Jewish business owner in Philadelphia, watching your establishment publicly crossed out on a flyer declaring that businesses like yours must go. Imagine explaining to your children why people are protesting outside your livelihood because of who you are or what they believe you represent. And imagine being told afterward that everything worked out because the mayor gave a good speech.
That is not protection. That is not justice. And that is certainly not victory.
We have watched Jewish communities across Europe face mounting intimidation and antisemitic threats. America cannot afford to normalize the same hostility here. No extremist movement, whether political or religious, should be permitted to use democratic freedoms as cover for unlawful intimidation.
Peaceful protest is a constitutional right. Criticism of Israel is a constitutional right. But threats, violence and criminal intimidation are not. That is precisely why law enforcement must investigate the organizers' conduct, examine the evidence and determine whether criminal laws were broken. If they were, charges must follow.
As founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, I called for arrests and prosecution where the law was violated because I refuse to accept symbolic condemnation as a substitute for justice.
This is not about Jews alone. If a Jewish business can be targeted for exclusion today, another minority-owned business can be targeted tomorrow. The protection of one community is inseparable from the protection of every community.
Our founders did not establish America so that citizens would have to depend on political sympathy for their safety. They established a nation governed by laws, rights and equal justice. Those principles mean nothing if officials celebrate them in public while failing to enforce them when the law is broken.
The Jewish community showed courage in Philadelphia. The people who supported the restaurants deserve recognition. But the real test is not how many supporters showed up.
The real test is whether the authorities will act.
I want the mayor, the police commissioner, the district attorney and the attorney general to understand one thing: speeches do not replace investigations, condemnation does not replace prosecution, and political solidarity does not replace equal protection.
If criminal wrongdoing occurred, those responsible must face the law. If authorities determine otherwise, the public deserves a transparent explanation.
America cannot allow the targeting of Jewish businesses to become just another news story that disappears after a weekend of outrage. Because when a democracy protects its principles only through words, those principles begin to lose their meaning.
The world is watching. The Jewish community is watching. Every American who believes in religious freedom and equal justice should be watching.
We did not fight for religious freedom at the Supreme Court only to accept silence or symbolic gestures when Jewish businesses are targeted. We stood up for the rights of others because we believed in America. Now America must demonstrate that those same rights protect us.
Stop congratulating yourselves for condemning antisemitism. Enforce the law. Deliver justice. That is what victory looks like.