Three Israeli cuisine restaurants in Portland, Oregon were targets by vandals over the weekend who scrawled anti-Semitic statements and even the word “murder” on those establishments. The Portland Police Bureau is investigating the coordinated attacks on three separate restaurants on the same night as hate crimes. The graffiti spray-painted on two branches of Shalom Y’all, read, “Hummus is not Israeli,” “Falafel is from Palestine” and, simply, “murder.” Shalom Ya’ll restaurant owners, Kasey Mills, Jamal Hassan and Laura Amans, said the attack was blatantly anti-Semitic.
“We are committed to operating inclusive spaces, and do not tolerate messages of hate or racism in any form,” Mills, Hassan and Amans wrote in their statement “We are so thankful for the outpouring of support we have received from the community over the last 24 hours.”
At Aviv restaurant, chef Tal Caspi is Israelis but most of the other workers are not. The restaurant recently removed the word “Israeli” from its signs, trying to distance itself from any political issue. Attacks such as these are more frequent against kosher institutions in Europe and are rare in the U.S. But Portland has also been reeling from months of protests and vandalism by Black Lives Matters and other groups since the summer and again in the past few weeks.