Updated on Nov. 8
When Jonathan Hirsch shared a video about an aggressive confrontation at Oakland’s Palestinian-run Jerusalem Coffee House for wearing his Star of David baseball cap, he opened the door to a media whirlwind.
Public scrutiny of Hirsch intensified alongside media coverage of the event, particularly after a report in the San Francisco Standard showed that Hirsch has a history of engaging in loud encounters in public.
Since the late October incident at the coffee shop went viral, Hirsch has also been “doxxed” — meaning his personal information was shared online — and has been harassed both on social media and in messages sent to his cellphone, including from some who claimed that the cafe incident was staged or exaggerated.
But this week, J. spoke with a second man who described a similar negative encounter at Jerusalem Coffee House for wearing a Star of David cap.
The coffee shop, which has become a hub for pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism since it opened last fall, sells items inspired by Palestinian culture like date tahini lattes. The business has also voiced support for the “Al Aqsa Flood,” the Hamas name for the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. Its menu is decorated with inverted red triangles, which are a Hamas symbol, and includes a drink named the “Sweet Sinwar,” announced just days before Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in Gaza. Employees denied the drink was named after him. The cafe recently advertised a new product on Instagram. “Limited release – only 107 available,” the promotion reads.
Mike Radice said he reported a complaint against the coffee shop to the Anti-Defamation League in August. Radice, 70, who lives in Los Angeles and comes to Oakland once a week for work, said he was scoping out a venue in July for a fundraiser. That venue happened to be on the same street as Jerusalem Coffee House.
Standing on the sidewalk near the coffee shop on Telegraph Avenue, wearing a baseball cap with a blue Star of David and embroidered with the Hebrew phrase “Am Yisrael Chai,” Radice said a man seated outside the cafe asked him “Are you Jewish?” to which Radice replied “yes.”
The man, whom Radice now recognizes from the viral Hirsch video as coffee shop co-founder Abdulrahim Harara, began shouting at him, he said.
Last week, a friend shared the video of Hirsch’s encounter at the cafe. “So it happened to someone else,” Radice thought when he saw it. “It wasn’t just me.”
Hirsch’s sudden public prominence came from the video he took engaged in a shouting match with Harara, as Hirsch’s 5-year-old son sits with him. Since then, strangers have flooded Hirsch’s social media accounts — some offering praise and others sharing hateful messages. Someone even posted a photo of his Oakland home.
Hirsch told J. in a follow-up interview on Thursday that he made all of his social media accounts dormant after receiving more than a dozen abusive and antisemitic messages since the Oct. 26 incident.
“This is a violent hat and you need to leave,” Harara shouted at Hirsch in the video. “Are you a Zionist? Are you a Zionist? Leave!”
Hirsch refused to answer the question and chose to stay, even after another employee of the coffee shop accused him of trespassing and someone called the police. In the video, he said repeatedly that he could not be forced to leave simply because he is Jewish.
The Anti-Defamation League told J. it received multiple reports about the year-old Jerusalem Coffee House beginning this summer.
“We have been in touch with OPD and [the] City Administrator’s office. OPD received a report and is conducting an active investigation,” Marc Levine, director of the ADL’s San Francisco-based regional office, said in a statement to J.
In the days after the video went viral, Hirsch said, his neighbors and fellow members of his Oakland synagogue offered him hugs, sympathy and praise for his bravery. At the same time, the harassment has continued. While on the phone with J., he received a text message from an unrecognized number and shared it in a screenshot.
“Did you have fun throwing your little temper tantrum attacking Palestinians in our own country?” it said. “It isn’t enough that you’re destroying their home. You have to bring your hatred here too.”
The report in the SF Standard cited three past incidents showing Hirsch arguing with strangers with his children present. One was a confrontation at a farmers market on Oct. 20. Video of the incident surfaced on X and Reddit.
In the video, Hirsch is seen loudly arguing with people tabling in support of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. The video goes on for more than 12 minutes. Hirsch wore his Star of David hat and had all three of his children in a wagon.
“I reacted poorly,” Hirsch, 41, told J. in an interview Thursday, when asked about the farmers market video. “I was loud and wrong.” He said the incident happened when a woman interrupted a political discussion he was having with a Price supporter.
“Don’t talk to him,” Hirsch recalled her saying. “All he cares about are what the millionaires, bigots and conservatives want.” He said he felt he was being singled out for his hat and his Jewish identity.
On Friday, that video along with two others became the focus of the SF Standard article.
The article was criticized by some in the Jewish community for portraying Hirsch as a repeat instigator of public disputes, rather than as a victim of blatant discrimination. In Hirsch’s mind and in the mind of his supporters, the video from Jerusalem Coffee House showed that clearly.
By Monday, media requests to Hirsch were being rerouted through a PR firm. Meanwhile, members of the Bay Area Jewish community were coming to his defense.
In a statement, the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area blasted the SF Standard article, calling it “blatant character assassination” that gave Harara and Jerusalem Coffee House a “free pass.”
“The article is being weaponized online to discount the experience of the victim, who is now being harassed and doxxed,” the statement said. “This type of journalism is why many crime victims are reluctant to report them to the police and to the press.”
J. spoke with a longtime friend of Hirsch’s, who was at the coffee house the day of the incident and spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for her safety.
The friend, a Jewish Oakland resident, said Hirsch contacted her while he and his son were still at the cafe. She said she began comforting the 5-year-old child, whom she’s known since he was born, and put him on her back. She stood outside while Hirsch was questioned by police.
“He doesn’t start things,” she said. “People expect Jews to be weak and fearful and avoid confrontation. And that’s not what you get with Jon Hirsch. He’s just not that,” she added. “He’s a lion of Judah.”