Cyclists Targeted Six Jewish Restaurants on Kristallnacht’s Eve. Hundreds Lined Up to Eat.

They picked the day before the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, and they picked six Jewish restaurants.

On Sunday, a bicycle protest calling itself the “Boycott Ride” rolled out of Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square and toward Mac Mart, K’Far Cafe, Huda, Goldie, Dizengoff, and Schlesinger’s Deli. The organizers, a group named Philly Bike On Your Left, had advertised the route since late October as a stand against what they called “Zionist establishments.” Their flyer was blunt: “No business for Zionists! These Zionist Establishments must go! Not in our city!”

In the Instagram post that announced the ride on Oct. 30, the group told followers, “Ride around Rittenhouse with us as we show these zionist business owners that we see them for the disgusting humans they are.”

What they got was a much bigger crowd coming the other way. The Philadelphia Inquirer, on the scene, wrote that hundreds of people turned out to patronize the restaurants and that the Israeli flags in the air suggested the counterprotesters outnumbered the cyclists as the ride left around noon. Some in the square sang the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Police cars, motorcycles, and bicycle officers ringed the area. WPVI, Philadelphia’s ABC station, reported that police said three people were arrested.

One of the targets, Huda, was so packed that owner Yehuda Sichel told the Inquirer he had never seen a crowd like it. When he first heard about the ride, he said, “I was pretty hurt and pretty upset about it.” His grandfather survived the Holocaust and “witnessed Kristallnacht with his own two eyes.” Sichel said he believes he was singled out because he raised a few thousand dollars after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre for injured and traumatized Israeli children, sent to their municipality, not to any military.

“I’m an American. I’m a Jew. I’m a proud supporter of the Israeli cause but that does not mean I’m in the government over there,” he said. “I don’t even have any influence on the government in Philadelphia.”

“A sick parade of rank antisemitism”

The ride had already been condemned by name, before a single bicycle left the square.

Sen. John Fetterman did not mince words. “This ‘Boycott Ride’ in Philadelphia is the Left’s pro-Hamas, Jew-hating, BDS a***holes-on-wheels,” he posted Friday. “Every Democrat of conscience should condemn this sick parade of rank antisemitism.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office called it “blatant antisemitism designed to intimidate and drive Jewish businesses out of our communities.” On Friday he posted that his administration had been in touch with local officials ahead of a protest “designed to intimidate and drive Jewish businesses out of our communities.” After Sunday’s ride, he thanked Philadelphia police and state police and said that “in the midst of blatant antisemitic targeting of Jewish-owned restaurants on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the City of Brotherly Love showed up to support our neighborhood businesses and prove once again that hate has no place in our Commonwealth.”

The date was close, not exact. Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom of Nov. 9–10, 1938, begins its 88th anniversary on Monday. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum records that Nazis burned more than 1,400 synagogues, vandalized thousands of Jewish-owned businesses, and that German police imprisoned about 26,000 Jewish men in concentration camps simply because they were Jewish. Hundreds of Jewish people died during the riot and its aftermath.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Philadelphia Democrat, made that history explicit. “Targeting a business just because the owner is Jewish is wrong. It is antisemitism,” he posted, and in a statement said the episode “evokes the darkest chapters of history, including the Nazi boycotts of Jewish businesses in the 1930s and Kristallnacht.” Mayor Cherelle Parker said everyone has the right to protest, “but singling out businesses because their owners are Jewish is unacceptable and has no place in our city.” Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday called the ride “unconscionable,” saying the organizers were “engaging in a form of discrimination that falls back on some of the oldest antisemitic tropes and tactics in history.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia put it simply: “The public targeting of Jewish businesses should alarm every person of conscience. We cannot allow such hatred to become normalized in Philadelphia.”

They say they didn’t know the date

Philly Bike On Your Left says that reading is a smear. In a Saturday Instagram statement, the group said the ride had been “grossly misrepresented,” that it stands “firmly against racism and oppression of all forms, including fascism, antisemitism, islamophobia, and colonialism,” and that “the reason we are calling for a boycott of these businesses is because of their support for Israel.” Messaging with the Inquirer, an unidentified account behind the page said, “I can assure you we had no idea when [Kristallnacht] was. That’s not something we would ever do.” The group would not identify who was speaking, citing death threats and doxxing.

A coincidence that large is a lot to ask people to accept. The flyer had been circulating since Oct. 30. Kristallnacht is not an obscure date on the Jewish calendar, and the group had more than a week after officials started saying so to pick another Sunday. It kept this one.

Philadelphia’s Democratic Socialists of America lined up behind them. The chapter called the politicians’ statements “bad-faith and dangerous conflation of antisemitism with anti-Zionism,” while adding that “Jewish businesses and shops belong in Philadelphia.” Nearly 20 pro-Palestinian groups had signed a solidarity statement by Sunday morning, the Inquirer reported.

Three of the six restaurants — K’Far Cafe, Dizengoff, and Goldie — belong to CookNSolo, the group run by Israeli-born chef Michael Solomonov and his partner Steve Cook. After Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and took 251 hostages, CookNSolo and the two men raised more than $100,000 for Friends of United Hatzalah, a volunteer emergency-medical service. That fundraising, not a city health inspection or a menu, is what put their dining rooms on the map.

Mac Mart owner Marti Lieberman said the opposite of a boycott arrived anyway. “The outpouring of love and support from all over the country has been overwhelming in the best way,” she said. “Every message, order, donation, and kind word has reminded our little team that we are not alone.” A group called JewBelong bought billboards around the city telling people to “boycott the boycott ride.” The Israeli American Council showed up in person and told its members the same thing: visit, dine in, order directly. “A boycott seeks to isolate. Solidarity means coming back — next week, next month and throughout the year.”

That is the hole in the “it’s about Israel, not Jews” line. These are sandwich shops, falafel counters, and a deli in Center City. None of them sets policy in Jerusalem. The people who cook there cannot stop a war, and they cannot start one. What they can do, and what Sunday showed they will do, is open the door and feed the city that decided not to let a boycott write them out of it.