Following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent war between Palestine and Israel, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have increased worldwide.
Many of these hate crimes have been committed against restaurants owned by Israelis and Palestinians, as well as Jews and Muslims. The researchers point to the long-standing trend of restaurants being attacked, physically or virtually, on social media, in relation to sociopolitical events.
My research focuses on culinary heritage and the diaspora. People who attack restaurants in protest create a false dichotomy between food culture and national conflict, in which one group portrays the opposing group’s restaurants as either villains or diplomats. The question is how much power such protests can exert in the fight against war abroad.
Associated Press|Alamy
Food as a tool of soft power and protest
Throughout the 20th century, food has been used as a tool of soft power, that is, a means to influence by means other than directly political.
When places like restaurants and warehouses, where food is purchased or served, became sites of protest, the goal was to directly address a contemporary problem (segregation in the American South, violations of human rights in apartheid South Africa or diplomatic relations between Japan and Japan). Korea). The protest aims to introduce change that could have an immediate and observable effect by addressing those responsible.
Restaurants often represent ethnic or national cuisines. This can reinforce the public’s idea of a particular community’s cuisine.
However, very few diasporic restaurants are sponsored by the diaspora government as a diplomatic resource. Most often, the restaurant’s culinary culture is tied to the owner’s personal identity. The restaurant thus operates what could be described as “unofficial” culinary diplomacy.
Attacks on Israeli and Palestinian food stores and restaurants over the past five months, however, follow a different pattern.
In London, an attack on a restaurant, which was later classified as a burglary, sparked fear among the Jewish community. This led to public comments from local politicians condemning the pretext used to target Jews in response to the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East.
Similarly, a Palestinian restaurant in London receives dozens of death threats daily. Staff reported being frightened and intimidated.
In Philadelphia, the Philly Palestine Coalition stormed an Israeli restaurant, Goldie Falafel, after closing time, chanting: “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we’re charging you with genocide.” ” This accusation has rightly been compared to the long-established anti-Semitic trope of “blood libel.”
Dating back to the Middle Ages, the blood libel accused Jews of killing Christians to use their blood in Jewish rituals. The baseless accusation that a Jewish restaurant owner is “genocidal” is a modern iteration of this idea in that it falsely views a Jewish individual – and the Jewish people – as violent and hateful towards others and uses this view as a justification for anti-Semitism.
The restaurant’s owner, Michael Solomonov, makes no secret of his restaurants’ Israeli inspiration or his Israeli-American identity. However, the fact that the restaurant was closed at the time of the attack shows that the protesters’ accusation was not just aimed at the owner himself. Rather, it was an attempt to publicly frighten Jews and hold them responsible for the actions of the Israeli government.
Eating together can create community
In this type of attack, a national cuisine (Israeli or Palestinian) becomes a nationalist symbol. The distinction is important. The protest group simplifies its understanding of national character and imposes it on the restaurant and the local community of which it is a part, in an attempt to justify its iconoclasm. By targeting a restaurant that identifies with a specific cuisine, the protester makes the owner of that restaurant responsible for the actions of an entire group or country.
In doing so, the protester also dehumanizes “the other.” These attacks prevent any attempt to engage in nuanced conversation with people with divergent opinions, a phenomenon that is reflected on social media.
This point is made clearer by the fact that protesters also targeted kosher and halal stores, which have no ties to either Israel or Palestine.
Research shows that equating Israel with all Jews and speaking of Judaism as a homogenized entity is anti-Semitic. Likewise, attacking anyone or anything Muslim, in response to Hamas’ actions, is Islamophobic.
Ironically, restaurants are precisely the kind of spaces where nuanced understanding can actually be constructed through what’s known as commensality – the act of eating together.
This has been evident both in some responses to attacks on restaurants and in actions taken by restaurants themselves. Unlike iconoclastic or dehumanizing protests, some chose to create opportunities for diners to find comfort in being together.
The day after the rally in front of Goldie Falafel, hundreds of customers showed up in solidarity. They bought and ate falafel. Some prayed together.
Meanwhile, in January, a Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn called Ayat overcame the threatening calls and online messages it had been receiving since December by hosting a meal for the Jewish Sabbath.
They have provided meals to over 1,300 customers. People from all communities – Muslim, Jewish and others – came to support the restaurant. This act of eating together was about finding hope in a hopeless situation.
Access to food plays a central role in the conflict itself. In Gaza, Palestinians face famine and starvation. Aid has been hampered, with the World Food Program citing “total chaos and violence” to justify its decision to halt deliveries.
In Israel, around 200,000 people have been displaced by the war. This has led to new food sharing and volunteering initiatives in the agricultural sector.
The Ayat owners said that through their Shabbat meal, they wanted to convey a message of peace and shared humanity that has been largely lacking in this conflict. Food has the incredible power to unite, to provide natural spaces for conversation and healing, if we let it. In a time of overwhelming grief, it is worth remembering that food is charged with the power we give it.
