The Justice Department has filed an anti-discrimination case against the owners of the Jerusalem Coffee House in Oakland, California. Fathi Abdulrahim Harara and Native Grounds LLC are accused of violating Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation. The matter is also the subject of a private lawsuit by the Anti-Defamation League and other groups.
In the ADL complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, there are details on how a Jewish customer was alleged to have been chased from the business by its owner and an employee.
Michael Radice, visited Jerusalem Coffee House in July 2024, wearing a baseball cap with a Star of David icon and the phrase “Am Yisrael Chai” — or “the people of Israel live.”
In approaching the business, Radice says that he was confronted by a man sitting outside who demanded, “Are you a Jew?” After Mr. Radice answered affirmatively, the man verbally attacked him and accused him of being “responsible” for “killing children.”
Radice decided to go back to the business the following month and discovered that the man was an employee at the shop. He alleges that the man with the owner and a third employee forced him to leave and then followed him down the street yelling, “You’re the guy with the hat. You’re the Jew. You’re the Zionist. We don’t want you in our coffee shop. Get out.” As Mr. Radice walked away, three men followed him, and he heard them calling him “Jew” and “Zionist.”
The federal lawsuit notes that, on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, the Jerusalem Coffee House announced two new drinks: “Iced In Tea Fada,” an obvious reference to “intifada.” It also introduced as drink, “Sweet Sinwar,” an apparent reference to Yahya Sinwar, the former leader of Hamas who orchestrated the massacre. It also alleges that the coffee house’s exterior side wall displays inverted red triangles, a symbol of violence against Jews that has been spray-painted on Jewish homes and synagogues in anti-Semitic attacks.
Under Title II, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division can seek to force changes in how the coffee shop must remedy alleged discriminatory conduct. In the meantime, the shop will face demands for civil damages in the private lawsuit.
While customers appear undisturbed by drinks named after a mass murderer, the shop itself is likely to find what is coming a bit harder to swallow. It is now facing litigation on two fronts over the treatment of Jewish customers.
Apparently many, maybe most, local police-chiefs are attempting to intimidate citizens exercising perfectly legal First Amendment speech. This is a federal crime for any government official to perpetrate against any citizen under Title 18 US Code 241-245 (if Pam Bondi wants to do some local swamp draining).
The chronology: Several weeks ago this same police department was attempting to fabricate suspicion and engineer traffic citations.
Then I filed a Freedom of Information Act to this same local police chief notifying him that his department was committing illegal acts and in violation of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings. Violating federal criminal laws.
After being notified through FOIA requests, this police chief now attempts to intimidate my family simply walking around the block being intimidated by a marked police vehicle.
Pam Bondi these are federal crimes. Will you drain the swamp or not?
Anti-Semitism only exists when there are inferior, worthless, depraved, degenerates. Anti-Semites recognize that Jews are superior to them in every way and they are envious of their supriority to them.
People who hold no anti-Semitic views or feelings recognize that Jews hold a unique place in history as a group that has many individuals who have achieved and accomplished amazing things to benefit humanity and the world, despite prejudice and adversity from the inferior, worthless, depraved, degenerate segments of the community, and admire them for that.
It seems really dumb to blame and stereotype an entire group for the bad actions of the 1%. Unless the group publicly advocates for hate, violence or bigotry and all its members know about it.
Most Jewish people are great people but there is a small percentage of bad people in any group. Why would anyone commit acts of violence or bigotry based on that? How does punishing good people solve anything?
Many, maybe most, of the January 6 insurrection crowd outside the Capitol supported peaceful legal 1st Amendment protest. But then a few bad apples committed violence stereotyping the entire group.
Most immigrants are great hardworking people. But there are a few criminals in every group. Do we then snatch elementary school children and even legal immigrants off the street and deny them legal due process simply from stereotyping the entire group (which Trump is doing now)?
I would suggest the cafe owner should talk to his lawyer about restructuring his business to a private social club. The Civil Rights Act was not designed for this type of situation — viz: this cafe is not intended to serve the random public, as was demonstrated. Thus, the owner & his friends have the Freedom to Associate among themselves. If I recall correctly, this was how the older generation of Mafia guys handled it. I recommend this case be redirected to Court-appointed mediation. And good luck to everyone involved!
Even if the appear to be great hardworking people, they are still, unlike those born here, illegally present in the country and thus subject to deportation. They’ve always known this. By the early and bold show of force, and his recent comments on service and farm workers, I believe President Trump may be working to a position I’ve advocated – that if people who have otherwise been law abiding and hardworking are willing to come forward and be vetted, then they can be allowed to stay and given a work permit on a probationary basis. However, if they don’t come forward and are caught, they will be deported.
Knowing that antisemitism has been building in the abstract, is quite different from seeing the instant flood of antisemitic loathing that follows any mention of the support of Israel, or Jewish people.
I’ve been seeing the same sorry tropes being regurgitated on social media, like the canard that the Jews caused 9/11. Antisemites now claim that October 7 was an inside job, orchestrated by Netenyahu, to persecute Hamas. Asked how Hamas got the hostages, and you’re met with glassy eyed indifference.
It’s deeply disturbing.
There are over 50 Muslim countries in the world. There is one, very small, Jewish country, Israel, which has a Jewish history of thousands of years. The only Jewish country is also the only country faced with global calls for its destruction.
Not even North Korea, with its systemic human rights violations, receives global calls for the destruction of the entire country and death to all its people. Only Israel. Only the Jewish country.
This slavering genocidal antisemitism is spreading like a wildfire in California.
This normalization of antisemitism was conceived on the Left. It’s sobering to think what could happen to our Jewish citizens if an antisemite like AOC gets elected President one day.
You’re spot-on Karen. The “kill the Jews” trope is always the go-to when people feel uncomfortable with their situation in life or want attention, like the mentally ill Greta Thunberg. Antisemitism is an ancient disease and its roots are spiritual. Until that serpent of old is finally thrown in the abyss it will continue wreaking havoc in this world through its hatred for God’s chosen people, as a proxy for a deep and abiding hatred of God himself.