Posted on 06/10/2025 11:30:06 AM PDT by ransomnote
The Justice Department announced today that it filed a lawsuit against Fathi Abdulrahim Harara and Native Grounds LLC, the owners of the Jerusalem Coffee House in Oakland, California. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants discriminated against Jewish customers, in violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation.
“It is illegal, intolerable, and reprehensible for any American business open to the public to refuse to serve Jewish customers,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Through our vigorous enforcement of Title II of the Civil Rights Act and other laws prohibiting race and religious discrimination, the Justice Department is committed to combatting anti-Semitism and discrimination and protecting the civil rights of all Americans.”
The lawsuit, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that defendants discriminated against Jewish customers through policies and practices that denied them the full and equal enjoyment of the Jerusalem Coffee House’s services, accommodations, and privileges. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that on two separate occasions, Harara ordered Jewish customers — identified because they were wearing baseball caps with Stars of David on them — to leave the coffee house. During one incident, an employee told a Jewish customer who was trying to make a purchase, “You’re the guy with the hat. You’re the Jew. You’re the Zionist. We don’t want you in our coffee shop. Get out.” During another incident, Harara accused another Jewish customer who was with his five-year-old son of wearing a “Jewish star,” being a “Zionist,” and supporting “genocide.” Harara repeatedly demanded that the customer and his son leave and falsely accused them of “trespassing” to the Oakland police. Neither customer stated anything about their political views to Harara or any other employees while at the coffee house.
The lawsuit also alleges that, on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, the Jerusalem Coffee House announced two new drinks: “Iced In Tea Fada,” an apparent reference to “intifada,” and “Sweet Sinwar,” an apparent reference to Yahya Sinwar, the former leader of Hamas who orchestrated the attacks on Israel. The lawsuit further alleges that the coffee house’s exterior side wall displays inverted red triangles, a symbol of violence against Jews that has been spraypainted on Jewish homes and synagogues in anti-Semitic attacks.
Under Title II, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division can obtain injunctive relief that changes policies and practices to remedy the discriminatory conduct. Title II does not authorize the division to obtain monetary damages for customers who are victims of discrimination.
More information about the Civil Rights Division and the laws it enforces is available at http://www.justice.gov/crt. Individuals may report discrimination in places of public accommodation that violates Title II by calling the Justice Department at 1-833-591-0291, or submitting a report online.
Updated June 10, 2025TopicCivil RightsComponentPress Release Number: 25-594
Ms. Dhillon is the perfect person to prosecute this case....she is brilliant.
BUSINESS RIGHTS!!!
Excellent but now what? They have to let Jews in? I wouldn’t go in there and I’m not Jewish. Pay a hefty fine?
okay the DOJ sounds fine on this one but what about the rampant antisemitism just a few miles down the road in SillyCon Valley (including the big famous corporation headquartered in Palo Alto that build (undoubtably in Communist China) the computer this note is being typed on))? Will DOJ take on the much larger discriminations existing in some (not all, obviously) big corporations?
Which is to say, if I were in charge of anything larger than deciding which way to hang the toilet paper in my bathroom, I’d start DOJ after a few of the most glaring, most visible, longest-term bigot outfits (yes, including some multi-billion dollar corporate giants that might possibly, maybe, be making some substantial political contributions)
just to be honest (and effective)
but again, nobody asked me and I don’t have PDJT’s ear or even his phone number. So........okay on the tiny little coffee shop in a city I never, ever visit. It is at least a (teeny tiny) step foward from the previous administration.
Like the right to not have to make a cake for a gay wedding? Maybe not wear a hat in someone’s business that will set them off? I really wouldn’t want a consumable product from the guy after that anyway…
Not on civil rights.
More tenuous examples vs this one.
It’s a public accommodation.
Has she prosecuted any case since being in office? As far as I know, she hasn’t.
Nothing to do with the cake bakers, no one is asking them to create something offensive. No public business can refuse to serve someone because of their race, religion or sex.
However, as I Jew I wouldn’t set foot in that place and give them q dime of my business.
So the classified intelligence apparatus, the means to how it is gathered, used by the POTUS proves there to be an invasion and that intelligence must be shared with a judge.
Gotcha!!
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