Video Anti-Israel protesters target Jewish-owned businesses in Philadelphia Mac Mart Cart owner Marti Lieberman discusses the community support her business received after being named in a Philadelphia anti-Israel protest flyer on 'America's Newsroom.'
The best response to antisemitism isn’t censorship. It’s philosemitism and exposing the truth.
I learned about the protests targeting Jewish-owned restaurants in Philadelphia on Nov. 8 when my friend Ari Engel posted on social media about going out to eat to support those establishments.
In Philadelphia, anti-Israel protesters organized a bicycle demonstration targeting six Jewish-owned restaurants and calling for a boycott. They wanted to discourage people from patronizing these businesses.
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Instead, the community turned their boycott upside down with a deluge of support and patronage for those Jewish-owned businesses.
Demonstrators and counter-protesters confront each other during a protest ride organized by Philly Bike on Your Left around Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 8. (Bastiaan Slabbers/Reuters)
The timing of the protest was chilling as it took place on the eve of the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Nazis attacked Jewish businesses, shattered storefronts and terrorized Jewish communities across Germany and Austria.
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Jewish organizations mobilized supporters in Philadelphia. The ADL encouraged people to eat at the targeted restaurants. JewBelong erected billboards urging residents to boycott the boycott. Hundreds of people showed up, packed restaurants and formed lines around city blocks. One restaurant worried it wouldn’t have enough food to serve everyone.
The protesters wanted to drive customers away. Instead, they drove customers in.
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There’s a profound lesson here about the power of free expression. The protesters exercised their freedom to call for a boycott. The community exercised its freedom to reject it. Rather than demand censorship, ordinary citizens used their voices, their presence and their purchasing power to challenge prejudice.
That’s how a free society should work. We don’t need to silence hateful ideas to defeat them. We can expose them, challenge them and let them lose in the marketplace of public opinion. Censorship can turn extremists into martyrs. Public rejection can reveal just how little support their ideas command.
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And when non-Jewish neighbors stand alongside Jewish neighbors, antisemitism loses something essential: the illusion that it speaks for the majority.
Of course, criticizing Israel or advocating a political boycott isn’t inherently antisemitic. But targeting Jews because of their identity or holding them collectively responsible for Israel crosses a moral line. We can defend the right to peaceful protest while vigorously confronting prejudice.
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We need more than opposition to antisemitism. We need proactive philosemitism: people of every background celebrating Jewish culture, supporting Jewish neighbors and embracing Jewish life.
There’s a profound lesson here about the power of free expression. The protesters exercised their freedom to call for a boycott. The community exercised its freedom to reject it. Rather than demand censorship, ordinary citizens used their voices, their presence and their purchasing power to challenge prejudice.
And solidarity shouldn’t end when the protesters go home. Keep visiting those restaurants. Build friendships. Learn about one another. Turn a moment of outrage into lasting relationships.
The answer to people who want Jewish businesses to disappear isn’t to silence the protesters. It’s to fill those businesses with customers.
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They organized a boycott. Philadelphia organized a food crawl.
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That’s how you turn hatred into solidarity and let antisemitism defeat itself.
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Eli Federman has written at the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, New York Post, Reuters, and others on society and religion. X: @elifederman
