The kosher eatery Holy Bagels & Pizzeria in Miami after vandalism in June 2024. Courtesy of Josh Nodel
By Hannah Feuer
July 15, 2025
Shortly after the attacks of Oct. 7, Josh Nodel, the Israeli-born owner of Bagel Time Cafe in Miami Beach, hung Israeli and American flags on his storefront. He said the flags served as a daily reminder of the hostages in Gaza, whose continued captivity feels like “a stab in my heart.”
The cafe has been vandalized three times since.
The first incident was in October 2023, when security footage showed a man slashing the Israeli flag outside the cafe with a knife. Nodel taped the flag together and hung it back up. A month later, a woman tore down the American and Israeli flags, brought them to the middle of the street, and stomped on them. Then in December 2023, a man stole the American flag.
Nodel also owns the kosher Holy Grill & Deli in Miami, formerly known as Holy Bagels & Pizzeria. In June 2024, vandals spray painted the windows with messages reading “free Palestine” and “stop genocide.”
“We have been targeted — at both restaurants — because of our support to Israel,” Nodel said. “I’m not giving in.”
Nodel is hardly the only business owner to deal with vandalism related to Israel advocacy. Over the weekend, vandals graffitied an Israeli-owned kosher restaurant in Athens, Greece, with messages such as “No Zionist is safe here,” and “Israel Death Forces — rapists, torturers, murderers.”
Earlier this month in Australia, a protest at an Israeli-owned restaurant in Melbourne turned violent as intruders chanted “death to the IDF,” shattered windows and threw chairs while diners were eating, according to local police and eyewitnesses. Protesters say they were targeting restaurant owner Shahar Segal because of his involvement with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S. and Israel-backed organization that critics say has politicized aid distribution and bypassed the United Nations.
In the wake of Oct. 7, food establishments from kosher delis to Israeli Michelin-star restaurants have increasingly become sites of protest, harassment and political tension tied to the Israel-Hamas war.
Dani Klein, who runs the website YeahThatsKosher, noticed an uptick in attacks on kosher, Jewish, and Israeli-owned restaurants in the aftermath of Oct. 7 and started documenting the incidents on his blog. The thread connecting each case, he said, is a clear public association with Jewish or Israeli identity.
“It’s low-hanging fruit for antisemites or for anti-Israel people,” Klein said. “We don’t have a security guard in front of our favorite sushi spot or kosher steakhouse or kosher pizzeria. So in a sense, they’re very soft targets.”
Reports of vandalism and harassment at food establishments since Oct. 7 have been widespread: a juice bar in Brooklyn, a falafel restaurant in Philadelphia, a kosher deli in Los Angeles, an Israeli-owned restaurant in Houston, a kosher restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, an Israeli restaurant in Brooklyn.
“It’s not about Zionism or not Zionism,” Mike Kalbo told the Forward after his New York restaurant, Rothschild TLV, was vandalized in May 2024. “It’s kosher food.”
Palestinian businesses have been targeted with vandalism, too, including Palestinian cafes in Berkeley and Chicago and a Palestinian-owned restaurant in central Ohio.
A constructive outcome can be the outpouring of community support many businesses receive afterward. More than 100 customers showed up at the Palestinian-owned Nabala Café in Chicago after vandals smashed a window. And after the Holy Grill & Deli in Miami was vandalized, Miami’s mayor, Francis Suarez, and U.S. district judge Roy Altman stopped by to help clean up the graffiti.
“Since then, thank God, we have [had] no more incidents,” Nodel said.
Nodel, who immigrated from Israel to the United States at age 20, still considers Miami the safest place in the country to express support for Israel. While he says he has started carrying a concealed weapon more often since Oct. 7, he said he is not afraid — and has even added additional Israeli flags to his storefronts.
