They got on their bikes, put on their keffiyehs and pedaled through an American city and targeted Jewish businesses. And they made sure to do it on the eve of the Kristallnacht anniversary.
Three hundred pro-Palestinian protesters. Six Jewish-owned restaurants. One day before the anniversary of the Nazi pogrom that burned Jewish businesses to the ground.
The Targets
The restaurants were named publicly. Mac Mart. K’Far Café. Huda. Goldie. Schlesinger’s. Dizengoff. Half of them are owned by CookNSolo, a restaurant group whose Israeli co-owners have supported Israel.
That is the crime. Owning a restaurant. Being Jewish. Supporting the wrong country.
So a group of cyclists decided to make them pay. They mapped them out. They published a list. They organized a ride. And they did it the day before Kristallnacht.
The Lie
Philly Bike On Your Left says the ride was “grossly misrepresented.” They say they stand against racism and oppression in all forms. They say the timing was about schedules and not about Jews.
You can call it anti-Zionism. The people who own those restaurants call it what it is: a mob outside their door.
The ADL did not mince words. “This protest is an attempt to intimidate a Jewish community that has faced generations of violence, exclusion and antisemitism,” they wrote. “That’s antisemitic, plain and simple.”
The ADL is right. The organizers are lying and everyone knows it.
The Cowards Behind It
The organizers hid behind their keyboards. They wrote an Instagram statement. They claimed they were fighting fascism. They said “how we spend our money is a reflection of our values.”
But they would not stand on a street corner alone and shout at Jewish restaurant owners. They needed a mob. They needed numbers. They needed the safety of a crowd to do what they did.
That is what cowardice looks like. You do not target six restaurants because you care about Palestine. You do it because you want to hurt someone and you know you can get away with it.
And they did it on Kristallnacht. They cannot even claim they did not know. The timing was not an accident. It was the point. It was a threat dressed up as a protest.
The Bottom Line
A pro-Palestinian bike group organized a boycott ride targeting six Jewish-owned restaurants in Philadelphia. The ride took place on the eve of the Kristallnacht anniversary. Three people were arrested after clashes between protesters and counterprotesters. The ADL condemned the boycott as antisemitic.
My Opinion
This was an antisemitic mob that knew exactly what it was doing.
They called it a boycott in solidarity with Palestine but what they did was target Jews. They named Jewish businesses, organized a ride to visit them and they did it on the eve of the day that commemorates the Nazi pogrom against Jewish businesses.
That is a deliberate act of intimidation and it sends a message that says: we know who you are. We know where you are and we can come for you.
The organizers will tell you they are not antisemitic. They will tell you they are just anti-Zionist. They will tell you they are fighting oppression and will use the language of justice to justify targeting a community that has been targeted for thousands of years.
But when you boycott six Jewish businesses, and nobody else, that is antisemitism. When you organize a mob to stand outside Jewish restaurants, that is antisemitism. When you do it on Kristallnacht, that is a threat.
The Jews of Philadelphia know what this is. They have seen it before. Their grandparents saw it before. And their great-grandparents saw it before. The mob outside the Jewish business is not a new image. It is one of the oldest images in human history. And it always ends badly.
The organizers of this ride are not brave. They are not activists. They are cowards and are using a geopolitical tragedy as an excuse to do something ugly. They are doing it under the cover of a crowd because they know they would not dare do it alone.
The restaurants had lines out the door. That is the real Philadelphia. That is the city that showed up. The people who lined up to support their Jewish neighbors. The people who said no to hate.
But the fact that it was necessary to line up at all is the problem. The fact that Jewish businesses needed a police escort is the problem. The fact that the ADL had to install billboards saying “Running over Jewish businesses isn’t a peace plan” is the problem.
This is what antisemitism looks like in 2026. The packaging may have changed but the hate is the same.
