A Jewish man living in Oakland, California, and his five-year-old son appeared on video being harassed and forcibly removed from a local coffee shop over the weekend by its anti-Israel owner for wearing a hat bearing the Star of David. Condemnation from local Jewish leaders and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Video of the incident, which went viral on Tuesday, shows Abdulrahim Harara, owner of Jerusalem Coffee House in North Oakland, talking to Jonathan Hirsch and his son over his old hat with the Jewish star on the front. When Hirsch’s five-year-old son started crying, Harara said Hirsch’s hat was “a violent hat and you need to leave.”

Harara, whose family is from Gaza and uses the menu of his business honoring terrorists Like late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, he said he did not ask Hirsch to leave because he had a Jewish symbol on his hat, but then repeatedly asked if he was a Zionist. Another worker at the shop later accused Hirsch of provoking trouble by coming into the cafe as a Jew, but the female co-owner of the business shot down the idea at the time. Hirsch and his son walked into the business looking for a bathroom to use and played chess at one of the tables in the store while waiting for the coffee he ordered.

After Harara repeatedly ordered Hirsch and his son to “get out,” Hirsch said Harara was discriminating against a protected class as part of a religious minority by refusing to serve because he was Jewish. The establishment’s female co-owner told Hirsch that she was in a shop “owned and operated by Palestinians.” Hirsch stated that this did not mean that they had the right to refuse service to him just because he was visibly Jewish. The co-owner incorrectly stated that any establishment would have the right to refuse service to customers because they are gay, but Hirsch also reversed this.

Harara eventually called the police, although she said contacting law enforcement was “against my sense of morality.” When police arrived, Hirsch was eventually removed from the store for allegedly trespassing, and the officer said he forced himself to separate himself from Harara. When he got out, he said, Harara came out and yelled at his son, “Your father is an asshole.”

JCRC Bay Area shared a post In a shortened version of the video, edited to protect the young boy’s identity, he said: “The increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Oakland since October 7 is alarming and out of control. “This incident stands as one of the most blatant acts of discrimination and we call on our leaders to take a stand against such behavior and speak out NOW.”

To talk Jewish Insider Regarding the encounter Wednesday, Hirsch claimed that one of the employees made a suggestive comment to his son as he was being escorted from the building, at which point he said the person tried to push him out of the store. He also said he allowed the officer, who is not identified in the video, to film the clipboard with his home address on forms on his driver’s license as he filled out Harara’s information.

“I’m fine, but I’m worried about my child and our safety. It’s all a little surreal, but it’s something we’re dealing with here in Oakland,” Hirsch said.

Hirsch said he tried to keep his son focused on the “layered support” they received from “our non-Jewish community and our Jewish community.”

He added that he hopes to “get some kind of confirmation from the city as to whether they’re going to enforce these protection laws for Jews in the same way that I would expect for any other group.”

“If we’re here alone, I want to know. “If we’re not, I want to see that,” he said, noting that he was pursuing his legal options in the meantime.

Schiff, who is the frontrunner in the state’s Senate race, said in a statement regarding the incident: “Executing a customer from a restaurant for no reason other than his Jewish ancestry is blatant anti-Semitism. No one should be turned away because of their faith. “This type of bigotry has no place in California.”

Jeremy Russell, Bay Area spokesman for the Jewish Community Relations Council, told JI: “I’ve been at the JCRC for 10 years, and this is the clearest example of anti-Semitic discrimination by a business owner. What I’ve seen in my 10 years here. It seems very cut and dry.” ”

Russell warned that the incident “is consistent with a pattern of escalation by activists in the East Bay, and this is extremely concerning as tensions continue to escalate in the Bay Area.”

“I would definitely encourage everyone to reach out to those authorities and let them know about this incident. The more they hear from the community, the more likely they are to respond and they should respond to it,” Russell said.
Oakland Police Department representatives did not respond to JIS. A request for comment was made on the matter.