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The Dominican Republic was a haven for Jews fleeing the Nazis. A museum project could tell that story.
SOSUA, Dominican Republic (JTA) — Sitting inside a small wood-frame shul just around the corner from Playa Alicia, where tourists sip rum punch while watching catamarans glide by, Joe Benjamin recounted one of the most uplifting but often forgotten stories of Jewish survival during the Holocaust.
“I was bar mitzvahed right here,” he said, pointing to a podium at the front of the sanctuary in La Sinagoga de Sosua. It was built in the early 1940s to meet the spiritual needs of about 750 German and Austrian Jews.
At the time, the Dominican Republic was the only country in the world that offered asylum to large numbers of Jewish refugees, earning the moniker “tropical Zion.”
Benjamin, 82, is president of the Jewish community of Sosua and one of only four surviving second-generation Jews remaining in this touristy beach town on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. His parents were part of the unconventional colony of Jewish immigrants who established an agricultural settlement between 1940-47 on an abandoned banana plantation overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
“When I talk about that, I get goosebumps,” Benjamin said. “This is a distinction that the Dominican Republic has. It was the only country that opened its doors to Jews.”
Joe Benjamin, president of the Jewish Community of Sosua, inside the sanctuary of La Sinagoga. (Dan Fellner)
At the 1938 Evian Conference in France, attended by representatives of 32 countries to address the problem of German and Austrian Jewish refugees wanting to flee Nazi persecution, the Dominican Republic announced it would accept up to 100,000 Jewish refugees. About 5,000 visas were issued but fewer than 1,000 Jews ultimately were able to reach the country, which is located on the same island as Haiti, about 800 miles southeast of Miami.
Benjamin was born in 1941 in Shanghai, the only other place besides the Dominican Republic that accepted large numbers of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. Shanghai, then a divided city not under the control of a single government, did not require a visa to enter. About 20,000 Jewish refugees immigrated there, including Benjamin’s parents, who fled Nazi Germany in 1939.
In 1947, with a civil war raging in China, Benjamin’s father realized the country “was getting a little difficult” and looked for another place to raise his two children.
“I think my father read it in a newspaper – there was a Jewish refugee colony in the Dominican Republic,” he says. “My father had no idea where that was, but he said, ‘I’m going there.’”
Benjamin’s family took a ship from China to San Francisco, a train to Miami, and then flew into Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s capital city. At that time, the city was officially called Ciudad Trujillo after the country’s dictator, Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo, who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961.
Photos of some of the 750 Jewish refugees who settled in Sosua in the 1940s on display at the Gregorio Luperon International Airport in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. (Dan Fellner)
Historians suggest the Dominican dictator’s motives in accepting large numbers of Jewish refugees at a time when so many other countries — including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom — turned their backs were fueled more by opportunism than altruism. It’s believed that Trujillo wanted to improve his reputation on the world stage following the 1937 massacre of an estimated 20,000 Black Haitians by Dominican troops. Furthermore, Trujillo liked the idea of allowing a crop of mostly educated immigrants who would “whiten” the country’s population.
“He was a cruel dictator,” Benjamin said of Trujillo. “But it’s not for me to judge. Because for us, he saved our lives. If you’re drowning and someone throws you a rope, you hold on to it. You don’t start asking his motive. You just hold on.”
In 1947, Benjamin was among the last group of Jewish refugees to arrive in Sosua, one of about 10 families known by the other colonists as the “Shanghai group.” The Sosua settlement was run by an organization called the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA) that was funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in New York.
“DORSA would give you 10 cows, a mule, a horse and a cart,” said Benjamin. “My father by profession was a cabinet-maker. He thought he was going to do that here. But there was no market for that. So he dedicated himself to farming.”
Benjamin said conditions in Sosua were “primitive” and a difficult transition for many settlers who had been city-dwellers in Europe. Still, he spoke fondly of a childhood in which he was relatively insulated from the horrors that befell so many other Jewish children his age.
“We had enough to eat,” he says. “We enjoyed the beach. And I went to a Jewish school.”
La Sinagoga de Sosua in the Dominican Republic served the spiritual needs of the Jewish refugees who found a safe haven in Sosua during the Holocaust. It’s now open only for the high holidays. (Dan Fellner)
The school, originally called Escuela Cristobal Colon, opened in 1940 in a barracks and was attended by Jewish children as well as the children of Dominican farm workers. The school still exists and is now called the Colegio Luis Hess, named after Luis Hess, one of the Jewish settlers. Hess taught at the school for 33 years and lived in Sosua until his death in 2010 at the age of 101.
While the children attended school, men worked on farms and women cooked dinner for their families, who ate communal style. Beds were lined with mosquito netting to prevent malaria. As men greatly outnumbered women — Trujillo did not allow single Jewish women to enter the country — intermarriage was common.
Over time, the agriculture venture failed and DORSA instead decided to promote a beef and dairy cooperative, Productos Sosua, which ultimately proved successful.
After finishing high school, Benjamin moved to Pittsburgh to attend college (he’s an engineer who once built and flew his own airplane), got married and started a family. After 17 years in the United States, he decided in 1976 to return to the Dominican Republic, where he became an executive with Productos Sosua. He worked there until he retired in 2004, when the firm was sold to a Mexican company.
“All my life I talked about Sosua as my home,” he said. “I like it here. Everybody knows me.”
A street mural recognizes Sosua’s Jewish history on the main road connecting Sosua with Puerto Plata on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. (Dan Fellner)
Today, Sosua is vastly changed from the sleepy town in which Benjamin was raised. In 1979, an international airport opened in Puerto Plata, just a 15-minute drive to the west. Sosua morphed into a congested tourist destination known for its golden-sand beaches and water sports. It also became a hub of the Dominican sex tourism industry.
Most of Sosua’s Jewish population immigrated to the United States by the early 1980s. Benjamin estimates that only 30-40 Jews remain in Sosua, most of whom are not religiously observant. As a result, the synagogue hasn’t been able to financially sustain a permanent rabbi for more than 20 years. Services are held only on the high holidays, when a rabbi is flown in from Miami.
Benjamin says a group of seven Jews chips in about $2,500 a month to pay for security and other operating expenses.
“It’s very hard to get the Jews here to pay,” he said. “When we bring in the rabbi, we try to charge something. But we don’t get any people if we charge.”
Next to the synagogue is a small museum called the Museo Judio de Sosua, which offers a window into the town’s Jewish roots. Five years ago, the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo donated $80,000 to the museum to preserve and digitize its archives. However, the museum, which is badly in need of repairs, has been closed for the past year.
The Museo Judio de Sosua, which tells the story of the Jewish refugees who found a safe haven in the Dominican Republic during the Holocaust. The museum is closed while the community waits for funding to reopen it. (Dan Fellner)
Benjamin has been in discussions with the Dominican government in hopes it will soon finance a major renovation of the museum that would include an exhibition hall big enough to accommodate 100 people for events. Benjamin says he is optimistic the project, which has a price-tag approaching $1 million, will be green-lighted by the government.
“They are very positive about it because it could become a tourist attraction,” he says, noting that Puerto Plata and nearby Amber Cove have become popular port-stops on Caribbean cruises originating in Florida. “If it comes to fruition, it will be in the next year. Because if they don’t do it by then, the government changes. And the next government never continues what the previous government started.”
Otherwise, there are only a few remnants of Jewish life in Sosua for visitors to see. In Parque Mirador overlooking the Atlantic, there is a white cement-block star of David, built to honor the Jewish refugees. About 70 Jews, including Benjamin’s parents, are buried in a Jewish cemetery about a five-minute drive south of the synagogue.
The main street connecting Sosua with Puerto Plata has a street mural depicting the town’s history that features a large star of David right above a scuba-diver. And two of the most prominent streets in Sosua — Dr. Rosen and David Stern — still bear the names of two of the colony’s Jewish founders.
Dr. Rosen Street in downtown Sosua is named after Joseph Rosen, one of the founders of the Dominican Republic Settlement Association. (Dan Fellner)
There had been an exhibition about Sosua’s Jewish colony at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York but it closed several years ago. All the more reason, Benjamin says, that the Sosua museum reopens as soon as possible so that the story of the Jews who found a Caribbean cocoon to ride out the Holocaust isn’t forgotten.
“Look at what’s happening in the world — there is a rise in antisemitism,” he said. “It’s very important that our history is documented. It will also be a place where Dominican schoolchildren can come and learn about Judaism.”
With the museum closed, the only place in the area to see photos of the Jewish settlers on public display is the departure lounge in Puerto Plata’s airport. Next to a Dominican band serenading travelers with meringue music, there is a display of pictures showing the colonists riding horses, tilling the fields, attending school and praying in La Sinagoga.
“When they came here, the Jews found no antisemitism at all in this country,” said Benjamin. “They were as free as anybody. They had a wonderful life.”
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The post The Dominican Republic was a haven for Jews fleeing the Nazis. A museum project could tell that story. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Eisenkot moves closer to ousting Netanyahu. Here’s what could come next.
(JTA) — Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot leaped ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week in the effort to secure enough support from the rest of the parliament to form Israel’s next governing coalition. But that doesn’t mean he’ll succeed in his quest to become prime minister.
Yashar won the most seats – 21 – of any party not aligned with Netanyahu in last month’s vote. But neither the prime minister’s bloc nor the opposition garnered the 61-seat minimum needed to form a governing majority.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday will announce who is being given the first shot at forming a coalition. By the end of this week, Eisenkot was able to announce that 67 parliamentarians had endorsed giving him the first chance to do so, compared to 46 for Netanyahu.
That means Herzog is all but certain to tap Eisenkot on Sunday to form a government – but Eisenkot’s path forward remains far from clear.
Eisenkot leads a bloc of four Zionist parties that make up Israel’s so-called change bloc, united by their stated goal of replacing Netanyahu. Together, they hold 48 seats in the incoming parliament, or Knesset, which means they need to enlist the support of parties whose seats total at least 13 to reach the magic number of 61 out of 120 Knesset seats. Or, they could gain a plurality if enough other parties abstain from voting in the new coalition.
Eisenkot has 28 days to negotiate that arrangement once given the opportunity, or mandate, to do so by Herzog, plus a 14-day extension if the president allows it. If Eisenkot fails, another candidate could get a shot at forming a coalition, or another round of elections might loom.
Sixty-seven lawmakers supported Herzog giving Eisenkot the mandate. But that’s different from voting for him to actually take power. Here are the paths he could take, and why each one is fraught.
An unlikely alliance?
The first option, which has gained traction in the days since the election, is to cooperate with the ultra-Orthodox parties. These parties have a longstanding alliance with Netanyahu but have served in governments with leaders in the center and left in the past.
There are several indications that such an arrangement may already be taking shape. For starters, United Torah Judaism, one of the two haredi Orthodox parties in the Knesset, told Herzog that it would not endorse either candidate for prime minister – seemingly breaking from the alliance with Netanyahu.
During the consultations with Herzog, the party’s leaders made clear that their support would go to whichever bloc was willing to make concessions on Haredi conscription, including abandoning sanctions against those who refuse to enlist.
If United Torah Judaism with its 7 seats shifts its support from Netanyahu’s coalition to the change bloc, Eisenkot could secure a plurality, provided the Arab parties at least abstain.
Another indication that such an arrangement may be in the works came from Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and a member of the change bloc. For years, Lieberman has been best known in Israeli politics for his fierce opposition to the haredi parties.
In a stunning change of course, Lieberman signaled in a Friday post on X that he was open to cooperating with the haredi parties to replace Netanyahu — an arrangement that would have been almost unimaginable until recently.
“The election results require all of us to rethink our approach and recognize that there are no good alternatives or magic solutions before us,” Lieberman wrote. He said politicians would need to “show flexibility and make compromises,” including on the issue of haredi military conscription.
“Our national responsibility requires us to make difficult decisions and be prepared for painful compromises,” he added.
The other leaders of the change bloc have been considerably more vague, focusing on the need to replace Netanyahu without specifying how they intend to do so.
“In recent days, I have been advancing a plan with my partners to establish a national emergency government,” Eisenkot wrote on Friday of the four parties that comprise the opposition bloc coming out of the election.
“The logic behind it is to quickly swear in a government based on the four Zionist parties of change and renewal, with any party or Knesset member who agrees to my four basic principles joining immediately or gradually,” he explained. These principles include recognizing Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, accepting the values enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, mandatory military or civilian service, and recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization.
But in the same post in which he announced his willingness to compromise with the haredi parties, Lieberman also introduced a potential obstacle that could derail the entire effort. The veteran politician ruled out supporting any minority government, raising the number of seats the change bloc needs to secure to 61. That would require the support of both haredi parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, rather than just the former.
That is a considerably greater challenge. Shas is considered more right-wing than United Torah Judaism, and its leader, Aryeh Deri, has maintained an especially close relationship with Netanyahu for years. The party also endorsed Netanyahu for prime minister during the consultations. So far, there has been no indication that Shas intends to abandon him, casting serious doubt on the viability of a change-bloc government backed by the haredi parties.
And that is far from the only obstacle facing such an arrangement. One of the central themes of the change bloc’s election campaign was the need to enlist haredi men in the military and change the state’s longstanding approach to their exemption from service. One of the bloc’s strongest campaign arguments was Netanyahu’s unpopular alliance with the two haredi parties. Every leader in the bloc, without exception, pledged before the election not to sit with them in government.
Forming a government with the haredi parties, likely involving significant compromises on military conscription, would be seen by many change-bloc voters as a stunning betrayal.
The first signs of a revolt have already emerged within the bloc. Dan Illouz, an elected Knesset member from Lieberman’s party, wrote on Friday that “we cannot give up on a conscription law,” making clear that he would oppose compromises on the issue.
An unprecedented partnership?
Another scenario that could theoretically allow Eisenkot to form a government would be to rely on cooperation with another minority, the Arab parties — an arrangement that has long been controversial in Israeli politics. The 19 seats won by Ra’am and the Joint List, the two Arab parties in the bloc, could provide the additional support needed for a change bloc government.
Eisenkot would need active support from Ra’am, the more moderate of the two Arab parties, which previously joined the coalition that replaced Netanyahu in 2021 and has made integration into Israeli society a central part of its platform, alongside an abstention or support from outside the coalition, i.e. not actively joining the coalition, by the Joint List. The more hard-line Arab party has signaled its willingness to engage in unprecedented cooperation with the change bloc to bring down Netanyahu’s coalition.
But here, too, cooperation is far from straightforward, and the obstacles again come from within the change bloc itself.
In addition to ruling out support for a minority government, including one backed by Ra’am, Lieberman made clear that he would oppose any government relying on the Arab parties. “We must not establish a government that relies on the abstention of the Joint List and Ra’am,” he emphasized in his Friday post.
Without Lieberman’s support, cooperation between the change bloc and the Arab parties appears unlikely. It would require the active support of both Arab parties, rather than just Ra’am, a prospect likely to create significant difficulties for members of the change bloc who may be reluctant to cooperate with a party that many Jewish Israelis view as hostile to the Jewish state and the Zionist project. Israeli media have reported that some lawmakers in the bloc have already conveyed that they would struggle to sit in a government with the Arab parties.
Here, too, such an arrangement would represent a clear breach of a campaign promise made by every leader in the change bloc. Eisenkot himself said in a late September interview with Channel 12 News that the Arab parties, including Ra’am, did not meet his conditions for joining a government. Among those conditions, he said, was recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization.
A unity government after all?
The third possible route to forming a government would be a national unity coalition between Netanyahu and the change bloc, or at least some of its constituent parties.
So far, all the leaders of the change bloc appear to have categorically ruled out such an arrangement after the election.
In his Friday post, Eisenkot said there was an “urgent need to replace” Netanyahu’s leadership. Lieberman declared that “the Netanyahu era must come to an end.” Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats, said the bloc had a “historic responsibility” to send Netanyahu home, while Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister who leads B’Yachad, also emphasized the urgency of replacing the current government.
The underlying assumption is that Netanyahu, who will remain prime minister if neither bloc succeeds in forming a new government and new elections are called, would prefer another election to giving up the office.
That would mean any unity arrangement would likely require Netanyahu to remain prime minister, at least initially, under a rotation agreement. Some have speculated that the change bloc’s overtures to the ultra-Orthodox parties are intended to lower Netanyahu’s bargaining power ahead of potential negotiations over a unity government.
For all the momentum behind Eisenkot’s bid to replace Netanyahu, none of the available paths to a governing majority looks straightforward. Securing the mandate may have been the easy part – forming a government could prove much harder.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Eisenkot moves closer to ousting Netanyahu. Here’s what could come next. appeared first on The Forward.
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How to pursue justice: 5 lessons from the life of Stan Levy
At a time of so much division and injustice, when the temptation is to retreat into outrage or into ourselves, there is much to be learned in the life of our friend, Stan Levy.
Stan, who died Nov. 5 at the age of 84, founded Bet Tzedek Legal services and was a fixture in the Los Angeles legal, philanthropic and Jewish communities for close to 60 years. Ensuring fairness where it was absent was Stan’s calling, both as a lawyer and a rabbi.
How he set out to do that — the sheer range of his accomplishments — is daunting: an experienced concert promoter, a corporate general counsel and law firm partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, an ordained rabbi, the founder and spiritual leader of a thriving congregation, B’nai Horin, the founder of a transdenominational rabbinical and cantorial school, the Academy of Jewish Religion, and, for good measure, the visionary behind the founding of three of the community’s most important legal aid organizations — Bet Tzedek, Public Counsel and the Western Center on Law & Poverty.
But the lessons behind the list matter more.
The first lesson: pay attention to the people others don’t see. The 1970s were something of a heyday for legal services, the funding relatively more plentiful and far less controversial than today. But Stan saw something few others did. There were no free legal services in what was then the center of Jewish life in Los Angeles, the Fairfax District. He recognized the significant needs of Holocaust survivors, a group otherwise invisible to most, and other low-income individuals and families living in the heart of the Jewish community. And in 1974, he founded Bet Tzedek Legal Services.
From its start as a small legal clinic in 1974, Bet Tzedek now draws on more than 1,100 staff and pro bono attorneys, and helped more than 82,000 people of all backgrounds in 2025. In 1970, before he turned 30, Stan launched Public Counsel, now the largest pro bono law firm in the country.
The second lesson of Stan’s life: build the institution, then let it outgrow you. Along with co-founder Luis Lainer, Stan continued to be a board member of Bet Tzedek for more than 50 years.
There was no founder’s syndrome for him. At various times we both served as CEOs at Bet Tzedek. We never heard Stan say, “That’s not the way we have done it.” Instead, he encouraged us and embraced changes. After 50 years, he was younger and more restless than the rest of us.
The third lesson: learn from everyone — especially from your own tradition. Stan was known to quote the likes of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Muhammad Ali with equal fluency. His favorite quote from Heschel was, “An act of injustice is condemned not because the law is broken, but because a person has been hurt.” His favorite from The Greatest was, “Service to others is the rent I pay for my room here on earth.”
He was a Jewish leader deeply versed in Jewish learning — it’s not as common as you’d think. In 1968, Stan founded B’nai Horin, which translates as “Children of Freedom.” The congregation was never affiliated with a movement and remained welcoming to all, drawing hundreds to its High Holy Days services, b’nai mitzvah classes and Shabbat services.
In 2001, seeing the need for a seminary that would educate professionals like him who wanted to more deeply explore their Judaism, Stan co-founded the transdenominational Academy of Jewish Religion in Los Angeles, which ordains rabbis, cantors and chaplains. Stan could passionately explain access to justice while drawing on Jewish history, tradition and teachings.
The fourth lesson: successful leadership is measured by the number of people you lift. The impact Stan had on our individual lives reflects the way he touched so many people. He guided our careers, helped guide us into leadership positions at Bet Tzedek, performed Mitch’s wedding and led shiva services for David’s parents.
When David launched The Justice Ball, a new era in legal aid fundraising events, it was Stan who negotiated the contracts for the famed musical acts who appeared. When Mitch launched the Holocaust Survivor Justice Network, a national pro bono program, Stan stepped away from his role as a law firm partner and ran the program across the country. He created an international network of more than 5,000 attorneys who have helped secure over $200 million in reparations for survivors. He was a founder who never hesitated to show up to do the work.
The last lesson he taught us may be the most important: Stan and his wife Lynda were inseparable, a power couple before there was such a thing. His sons, Jules, Aaron and Joshua, were the subject of so many of his stories. Stan could balance being a Renaissance Man with his greatest talent of all, being a Family Man. Neither suffered for the other; he had room in his heart for his passions and his loves.
The world is far from healed — though not for Stan’s lack of trying. His life points the way forward for all of us: find the people who’ve been overlooked, build something to serve them, bring everyone you can into the room — and then keep going.
Stan Levy, may your memory be a blessing.
The post How to pursue justice: 5 lessons from the life of Stan Levy appeared first on The Forward.
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A Philadelphia bike ride targeting Jewish-owned businesses on the eve of Kristallnacht anniversary spurs outrage from city and state leaders
(JTA) — PHILADELPHIA – A bicycle ride promoting the boycott of businesses in Center City Philadelphia that organizers claim are complicit in Israeli military actions is drawing scathing criticism from state leaders.
Jewish groups in the city are calling the ride blatantly antisemitic, noting that it targets Jewish-owned businesses on Nov. 8, the eve of the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass” when Nazi rioters vandalized and burned German Jewish businesses, synagogues and homes, a major escalation of Nazi persecution of Jews.
Organizers insist the timing is coincidental, and in statements posted on their Instagram pages accuse their critics of being “cynical” and weaponizing antisemitism to target pro-Palestinian advocates.
The Instagram post advertising the event in Rittenhouse Square reads: “Ride around Rittenhouse with us as we show these Zionist business owners that we see them for the disgusting human beings they are.” It continues, “We’ll flag as many bikes as we can and show our solidarity with the Palestinian community and oppressed folk everywhere.”
State and city officials expressing outrage at the planned ride include Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, a Democrat, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, a Republican, and Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat considered a contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.
“As Mayor, I serve every Philadelphian under the explicit premise that freedom of speech and freedom from fear are not competing values,” Parker said in a statement. “No one should be targeted, threatened, or made to feel unwelcome because of their faith, identity, or background. Singling out businesses because their owners are Jewish is unacceptable and has no place in our city.”
A spokesperson for Shapiro, whose official residence was set ablaze on Passover last year by a man enraged by Israel’s conduct in Gaza, said the ride was clearly antisemitic.
“This bike ride, masquerading as a protest to advance the cause of justice, is nothing more than blatant antisemitism designed to intimidate and drive Jewish businesses out of our communities and there is no place for that in our commonwealth,” the spokesperson said.
Sunday said the restaurateurs were targeted because they are Jewish. “By explicitly targeting businesses because their owners are Jewish, the organizers are engaging in a form of discrimination that falls back on some of the oldest antisemitic tropes and tactics in history,” he said.
Hearing such support not only from political leaders but also from interfaith leaders throughout the city has left Philadelphia Board of Rabbis president David Levin “gratified.” “We’ve received broad-based support,” Rabbi Levin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The Jewish community obviously is finding it outrageous, but our civic leaders have stepped up with public comments.
“And my faith partners from other denominations have reached out to us in solidarity and support,” Levin said. “I’m delighted Philadelphia has lived up to its tagline as the City of Brotherly Love. We are feeling that.”
He called on those sympathetic to the businesses not to interfere with the bikers. “The worst thing we could do is find ourselves in a place where there’s confrontation and this thing escalates and people potentially put themselves in a position where they could get hurt,” Levin said.
“I’ve been sort of using the tagline ‘Keep the streets empty and the restaurants full,’” he said. “The best thing we can do in the days and weeks ahead is support these restaurateurs trying to make a living, and our community is turning out in droves.”
The organizers, Philly Bike On Your Left in collaboration with Philly Writers Against the War on Gaza, Boycott CookNSolo and Philly Solidarity Calendar, posted the invitation to join on Oct. 30 on Instagram.
“We call for a boycott because the owners materially and ideologically support the ongoing occupation and genocide of Palestinians,” Boycott CookNSolo, named for the restaurant chain owned by Israeli American celebrity chef Michael Solomonov, said. “Profits from their enterprises and from their fundraising efforts have been used to fund the occupation and to support pro-genocide interest groups in the U.S. and ‘Israel.’”
It is not clear why the organizers believe the businesses are tied to any “occupation,” or how they are “pro-genocide.”
Solomonov, who declined to comment, has been targeted in the past for fundraising for United Hatzalah, a first responder rescue group that works with a wide range of civil and government bodies in Israel and abroad, including the IDF. One such fundraiser came after the group said its resources were stretched thin due to their work to save lives and preserve the dead after the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly Hamas raids inside Israel. Other restaurant owners appear to have been targeted, according to protest organizers, for expressing support for Israel on social media after the attacks, which killed 1,200 people inside Israel.
Boycott CookNSolo also said that drawing attention to the Kristallnacht timing was “a cynical take that is not only offensive to the historical victims of Nazi persecution but an intentional distraction from the actual pogroms currently taking place in the West Bank and the wholesale destruction of life and livelihood in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.”
Schlesinger’s Deli owner Allan Domb, one of the targeted owners, said he was heartened by the broad support he received.
“It’s upsetting to see this level of hatred against four business owners for no reason,“ said Domb, a former Philadelphia city councilman. “It’s blatant antisemitism. But the positive side is, the amount of support from Philadelphia and outside of Philadelphia has been amazing.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post A Philadelphia bike ride targeting Jewish-owned businesses on the eve of Kristallnacht anniversary spurs outrage from city and state leaders appeared first on The Forward.
