I am the owner of Michael’s Deli in Brookline, and since Oct. 7, 2023, the day more than 1,200 people were killed by the terrorist group Hamas, unleashing the war in Gaza, my storefront has been a designated landing spot for more than 40 stickers.
Their messages range from political rhetoric (“End the occupation,” “Free Palestine”) to straight-out Jew hatred (“Boycott Jews,” “Death to Israel,” and worse), and I am the recipient because I am proudly Jewish.
For the past two and a half years, I have removed the stickers and gone on with my day, but this time I had had enough. I decided to express my frustration on the shop’s Instagram account. The post has been viewed nearly 40,000 times and my deli has landed front and center in the battle against unchecked antisemitism and hate.
Over the past week, I have been visited by elected officials from Washington, D.C., the Massachusetts State House, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and members of the Brookline Select Board, as well as law enforcement, all in a show of support.
I appreciate their support, but it all feels a bit surreal. I am just a guy trying to create food that makes people happy and brings people together. We have no ties to governments or political parties; we have no influence over foreign policy; we are just a restaurant. The only thing we profess is pride in our heritage, our traditions, and in the food we serve.
There’s a reason these messages feel targeted. My business is in Coolidge Corner, and every time I have found hate stickers on my door or on my window, I look around to see if other businesses have been targeted. They have not. Just mine.
If these stickers had been placed all over the neighborhood, I would not be so upset. But they are placed on the shop owned by the guy with a “Proudly Jewish” sign in the window. I also have Israeli and Cuban flags on my counter. The Israeli flag is how I show pride in my Judaism. The Cuban flag is for my parents, who were born there after their parents fled Eastern Europe to avoid being persecuted for being Jewish. They then fled the oppression of the Castro regime.
Several other Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues in Brookline have been targets of antisemitic crimes over the past year. In fact, my neighbor up the street, The Butcherie, a kosher grocery store, had a brick with “Free Palestine” written on it thrown through its window last year.
The ADL Audit of Antisemitic Incidents that came out last week reports there were 17 antisemitic incidents per day in the United States in 2025 — and that’s only the ones that were reported. Up until last week, I had never reported what happened at my deli. I just took the stickers down and went on with running my business. However, the day after this incident, Brookline Select Board member Paul Warren came in after reading my Instagram post and told me that it was important that I report the incident to the Brookline police. And so I did.
All I can figure is that the folks who are targeting my business and others like mine see us as representatives for a country or a government or a policy that they don’t agree with.
And it makes me wonder: If my business was an all-American hot dog stand and I had an American flag inside my store, would people harass me if they were upset with America’s government or policies? I don’t think they would. And that’s antisemitism.
Folks once had actual conversations about issues that were divisive. Now, we retreat into our corners, wrap ourselves in our bubbles, and use the anonymity of social media to express opinions and spew hate.
These stickers, always placed at night, are an extension of that. It is easy and cowardly to slap a sticker on a door or window of an establishment and just walk away. It also accomplishes nothing.
Ultimately, supporting and promoting something you strongly believe in is a constitutional right. But, at the end of the day, I am just a guy who is proud of his heritage and whose goal is to make great food for all of my guests to enjoy. It would be nice if I can just continue to show up to my store everyday and focus on that, rather than finding hate at my door.
