San Francisco business owner Manny Yekutiel says he’s “floored” by the outpouring of support he has received since his cafe and event space was defaced with antisemitic graffiti on Sunday.
Supercharged with help from two major Jewish celebrities, a fundraising campaign to clean up and paint over the graffiti raised more than $58,000 between Monday and Wednesday, far surpassing its target of $36,500. Yekutiel said he wasn’t involved in planning the GoFundMe campaign but feels grateful for it.
The money greatly exceeds the Mission District cafe’s needs after the incident, Yekutiel said. With the leftovers, the entrepreneur and liberal activist who once considered a run for mayor said he plans to help other businesses around the country that have been, or will be, targeted with antisemitic vandalism. Some of the money will also go toward hosting a series of discussions about anti-Jewish bigotry at Manny’s, which has an adjoining space for speakers, debates and other live events.
Mayim Bialik, an actor on the long-running hit television series “The Big Bang Theory” and a former host of “Jeopardy,” and Alex Edelman, a stand-up comedian known for his award-winning one-man Broadway play and HBO special “Just For Us,” each donated to the fundraising campaign. Perhaps more importantly, they shared a link with their social media followers.
Edelman, who grew up Modern Orthodox and incorporates Jewish themes in his comedy, is a friend of Yekutiel’s. They participated together in Reboot, a program for influential Jewish professionals.
“He texted me saying he was sorry,” Yekutiel told J. on Wednesday, adding that he did not ask Edelman to post the fundraising link. “He did that on his own accord.”
Bialik, one of the country’s most outspoken Jewish celebrities against antisemitism, donated $1,800, a symbolic number representing “chai,” or “life,” and posted about the fundraiser to her 4.9 million followers on Instagram.
“This was not a political attack, it is an antisemitic one,” Bialik wrote, sharing a link to the fundraiser and asking her followers to chip in.
Among the messages scrawled outside Manny’s on Sunday in broad daylight, during a nearby pro-Palestinian protest, were “Zionists out of Frisco,” “Manny is a Zio murderer” and “death 2 the enemy,” which Yekutiel said he found particularly upsetting. The San Francisco Police Department said it is investigating the crime as “hate related.”
Yekutiel told J. he has been feeling a mix of emotions.
“It doesn’t feel good to have somebody write ‘death to the enemy’ on your business,” he said bluntly.
“I understand the feeling of wanting the war to end — a deep, deep desire for this war to end,” he added. “All of us share that.”
Yekutiel said the outpouring of support had been “overwhelming” and made him think about the solidarity the world’s Jewish community often shows toward one another, even from miles apart.
“It does remind me of how beautiful the Jewish community is,” he said, “and how we support each other.”