Popular NYC kosher restaurant targeted by vandals, has window smashed after anti-Israel protests
An Upper East Side kosher restaurant was targeted by vandals early Wednesday after anti-Israel protests — with the eatery blaming it on a recent spike in antisemitism in the Big Apple.
Rothschild TLV on Lexington Avenue had its front window smashed overnight following Israeli Independence Day celebrations.
“The window happened last night,” restaurant chef Guy Kairi told The Post. “There were people passing by yesterday saying bad things, things like, ‘No wonder this place is empty, free Palestine.’
“I can tell you these kids have never been to Palestine,” he said. “I want to live in peace and I know my neighbors want to live in peace here, and these people that are promoting violence and hate, they are not getting us anywhere.”
The upscale eatery is inspired by Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, according to the restaurant’s website.
Owner Mike Kalbo, who bought Rothschild four years ago, said the incident was captured on a store surveillance camera.
“It happens at 2:10 a.m.,” he said. “What I see in the video is a person coming with [his] face covered. The tool in his hand, he comes to the restaurant. First, he passed the restaurant, then he [comes] back after like 10 seconds.”
He said the culprit then “went to the window and broke the window.”
The NYPD did not have any information about the incident when asked about it later Wednesday.
But Kalbo said detectives told him it could possibly be classified as a hate crime — and that there were two other acts of similar vandalism in the area at around the same time.
The Big Apple has been plagued by a spike in antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7 sneak attack on Israel by Hamas and the subsequent Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Rabbi Joshua Lookstein of the Ramaz School at 78th Street and Park Avenue said he would bring 100 of his students to the restaurant to show their support for the Jewish eatery.
“Broken glass has a lot of meaning for the Jewish people,” Lookstein said, referring to “Kristallnacht” — the night of the broken glass — when Nazi goons ravaged a German Jewish community in 1938.
“If we continue to ignore this I’m afraid it will happen more,” the rabbi said.
But Lookstein said the city’s Jewish community is also not cowering from the surging antisemitism plaguing the five boroughs.
“Yesterday we celebrated Israel in Israeli Independence Day and were blasting music and music in the streets,” he said. “We don’t normally do it like that but we want people to see that we’re not afraid.
“This will not scare any of us,” he said of the broken window.
Additional reporting by Amanda Woods
