Warsaw 1939 Comes to New York  

Rabbi Berel Wein of blessed memory gave a talk once about the Jewish Diaspora experience in which he profiled the large communities in history where we thought we had made a home… until we couldn’t any longer.

Poland was his prime example.  Jews had lived in Poland for over 1,000 years, with the earliest documented communities having established deep roots as far back as the High Middle Ages. For nearly a millennium, Poland was a vital center of Jewish culture, eventually becoming home to the largest Jewish community in the world.  Prior to World War II, Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe, numbering roughly 3.3 million people.

After a 1,000-year history, the Nazi occupation and the Holocaust resulted in the near-complete destruction of the community, wiping out approximately 85 percent to 90% of Polish Jewry.  A thousand-year-long history almost completely wiped out in less than five years.

Those of us who were born and raised in New York, especially during the period that followed the devastation of European Jewry during the Nazi era, thought we were safe in America, but if things did turn bad, it would take a while and there would always be time to get out. Yet look what has happened in just the last three years since October 7 and at such a fast pace as well.

On Sunday, a Poetica coffee shop located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, banned Jewish Congressman Dan Goldman and his 7-year-old daughter from the establishment, stating openly that they “don’t serve racists, fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers.”

Poetica Coffee, with seven locations across New York City, posted a photo of Goldman on Facebook and Instagram. It was captioned, “We see that you stopped by our coffee shop today for a coffee. Do you see how it doesn’t taste like genocide juice?”  The post continued with:  “We don’t serve racists, fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers. Too bad we didn’t recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away.”

The shop claims to have issued Goldman an unrequested refund for $9.82, saying, “We issued you a refund – we don’t need your money (it’s probably coming from AIPAC anyways).”  They alluded to the primary challenge Goldman faced in yesterday’s election (in which he did not prevail), saying, “Enjoy your loss on Tuesday. Don’t ever come to Poetica.”  The post was accompanied by the song “F*** you” by British singer-songwriter Lily Allen.

Poetica’s Instagram account and the Lorimer Street Branch’s Facebook page appear to have been taken down since.  However, shortly before the account was deleted, Poetica Coffee posted a screenshot of a threatening email from “ilovehitler@hitlerwasright.com” saying “F*** you Nazi. May you die painfully,” with the caption “well, well, well.”

This, of course, is only one example of things that are happening every day all over the US, although probably nowhere is the antisemitism more rampant than in New York City, which has the second largest population of Jews after Israel.

New York authorities point out that confirmed antisemitic hate crimes in New York City account for the majority of all reported bias incidents in the city, despite a recent decline in overall major crime. Jewish New Yorkers are the target of hate crimes more often than all other groups combined, accounting for roughly 60% of the city’s total bias incidents.

Nevertheless, there are things that can be done to combat this development in American life over and above finding Poetica guilty of violating US law, which makes it a crime to refuse service to someone because of his or her race, religion, ethnic origin or political beliefs,

Jews and other people of conscience should simply boycott Poetica in order to teach them and others that this is simply not acceptable behavior and will not be tolerated or celebrated.

Poetica has six retail outlets in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan. A full-fledged, widely supported boycott of the company’s retail operations would be a major signal that this is simply not acceptable behavior against any group.  Let people think twice in the future before they put their businesses at risk for the cause of antisemitism.

Of course, history may have finally caught up with the American Jewish diaspora in any case.  It may very well be the turning of America to political progressivism where everyone is either a victim or a victimizer, oppressed or an oppressor, poor or rich….. but standing idly by while certain people have chosen to make themselves the arbiters of America’s future makes those who stand by and do nothing almost as guilty as the perpetrators of the obscenities themselves.

The sad truth is that no one is going to come along and save American Jewry. Yet there remains a large segment of the population that finds this type of behavior abhorrent. The Jewish community should join together with all people of good conscience and take to the streets to combat this madness.

None of us wants to see a museum in New York 50 years from now that traces the history of the former Jewish community there from the arrival of the first 23 Sephardic refugees fleeing the Portuguese Inquisition in Brazil in 1654 to the final end of the Jewish presence in 2075.  Totalitarianism has not yet taken full control, so there is still time to act, but the clock is ticking and each day it comes closer to midnight.  The time to act is now.