http://nypost.com/2024/05/04/us-news/nyc-israeli-restaurant-owner-sees-three-antisemitic-attacks-on-eateries-since-oct-7/
By Georgia Worrell
The Hew York Post
May 4, 2024
Owner Sharon Hoota arrived at ZiZi Tuesday morning to find two swastikas had been spray painted on the restaurant's outdoor dining shed. J.C. Rice
The same Israeli restaurateur whose kosher Upper East Side cafe was subjected to back-to-back anti-Semitic attacks saw another one of his eateries defaced with swastikas this week.
Owner Sharon Hoota arrived at ZiZi, in Chelsea, Tuesday morning to find two of the hate symbols — one red and one black — spray painted on the restaurant’s outdoor dining shed on Eighth Avenue between 19th and 20th streets.
“This is, I believe, no different than what the Jews saw in the 1930s in Germany,” Hoota told The Post Wednesday.
Two of the hate symbols — one black and one red — were spray painted on ZiZi’s outdoor dining shed. Coutesy Sharon Hoota
Instead of reporting the hateful vandalism to police, “I just told my guys right when I saw it, I said, ‘Just take it off.’ I cannot see something like that,” Hoota said.
The Israeli businessman said at least 10 Israel/US flags hanging outside of ZiZi have been torn down since Hamas’ vicious Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state, which left 1,200 Israelis dead.
In December, Hoota’s Hummus Kitchen on Second Avenue saw a so-called “Soup Nazi” — identified by The Post as Mayra Teke of Paterson, NJ — try to tear down an Israel/US flag, then fling soup at a worker and flip them the bird when she was confronted.
The ugly episode was closely followed by another antisemitic rampage at the eatery just four days later, when an unhinged woman tried to tear down the same flag, pushed a worker and gave staff the middle finger.
A so-called “Soup Nazi” tried to tear down an Israel/US flag, flinged soup at a worker and flipped them the bird at Hoota’s Hummus Kitchen in December. X/@StopAntisemites
The recurring attacks have left Hoota wary.
“I feel unsafe as a business owner, as a citizen, to put the flags outside, and it’s showing again the kind of marking as a Jew, as an Israeli … I’m unprotected,” he said. “Unfortunately, this type of thing is still happening in New York, and actually, it looks like it’s getting worse.”
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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