Surveillance camera footage showed a man in a dark hoodie and shorts spray-painting “free Palestine” in red multiple times on the windows and door of Holy Bagels & Pizzeria, a kosher restaurant in Miami, as well as tearing down an Israeli flag.
The anti-Israel vandalism on Sunday was the fourth time one of Josh Nodel’s restaurants has been vandalized, WSVN reported. Previously, his kosher Miami Beach shop, Bagel Time Cafe, was targeted.
Nodel told the television station that the graffiti was “devastating” and “disgusting,” but that it would not deter his support for the Jewish state.
“We won’t go to the gas chambers like happened in the Holocaust,” he told WSVN.
Nodel told the television station that he plans to fight anti-Israel fire with pro-Israel fire. “When they hurt us, we put more—we put two more flags, three more flags, five flags,” he said. “We stand behind the war, we’re not going to stop. We’ve got to do what the mission is, to get the hostages back home.”
Jewish-owned business targeted by hateful vandalism. Miami mayor @FrancisSuarez and federal judge Roy Altman show up to help clean it up. Story on @nbc6 starting at noon. pic.twitter.com/ybgWz1tGJb
— Ari Odzer (@ariodzernbc6) June 17, 2024
WSVN reported on Monday that Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, was one of several city officials who helped clean up the graffiti.
“Graffiti is not acceptable anywhere. It’s against the law, but in particular when it’s hateful and meant to offend a particular community, one that is a big part of our city,” he told the television station. “I just felt it was my responsibility to come here and do this as quickly as possible.”
Roy Altman, a U.S. district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also pitched in.
“I decided to come out here because my grandparents lived through the Holocaust. This is how it started in the 1930s, with spray-painting and targeting of Jewish businesses, Jewish homes and Jewish families,” he told WSVN. “We will never allow it to happen again in our country.”