A Jewish family was kicked out of a restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam, after the owner declared, “My shop doesn’t accept people from your country.”
Dani Namdar and his wife Raizel, self-declared “Chassidic nomads” and owners of the world’s first Orthodox Jewish family vlog dubbed “That Jewish family” on various social media platforms, were visiting Hanoi’s famous Train Street with their two young children, Mendel, 3, and Lev, 1, when an angry shop owner began hurling antisemitic insults at them.
The incident, which occurred earlier this month, was posted in two parts to Instagram and has already racked up more than 40,000 views. The Namdars have a significant following on Instagram, with 208,000 followers.
In the first video caption, the Namdars wrote, “This is not Germany in 1938. This is a ‘Pro Palestinian’ shop owner in Vietnam yesterday. You say Anti Zionism is not Anti Jewish? We were casually chilling on the famous train tracks in Hanoi for a photoshoot when a ‘Pro Palestinian’ shop owner started threatening our children once he saw Mendel’s Kippah.”
In the video, titled “OUR FAMILY THROWN OUT OF SHOP FOR BEING JEWISH,” the Vietnamese shop owner is recorded yelling at the family, who were having a photoshoot on the tables in front of his shop.
‘Get out of my shop’
“Get out of my shop. Out! Don’t sit there. My shop doesn’t accept people from your country,” the shop owner tells the Namdars.
When asked by Dani if the family was being ejected because they were Jewish, the shop owner denies the accusation, saying, “No, no, no. I don’t welcome.”
In the next clip, Raizel asked Mendel, “What did the mean man say about the Yarmulka?”
“Um… that we should take it off,” he replied. When asked if he wants to take his yarmulka off, he says, “I want to keep it on… we keep it on even when we sleep.”
“Honestly, this was really traumatic having our kids experience something like this,” the video caption continued. “How do you explain to a 3-year-old what he witnessed? How do you explain antisemitism to such a small child? That someone doesn’t like him because of the way he’s born. Make it make sense. We had a lot of conversations together afterwards and it just made me so sad that a 3-year-old had to experience cruelty.”
‘We only welcome humans, dogs, and cats’
The second video, titled “PART 2: ‘PRO PALESTINIAN’ THROWING US OUT OF SHOP FOR BEING JEWISH,” shows the same owner giving the family the middle finger while saying, “Free Palestine,” and “We only welcome humans, dogs, and cats.”
Dani then asks if he is “considered a human because he is Jewish” and is met with silence.
“The bombs are coming,” the shop owner later says, in reference to the war Israel is waging against Hamas. “Be careful here. The baby is not safe. The bombs are automatic, they fly on the baby.”
“The guy literally saw Mendel’s Kippah (I wasn’t even with Raizel and the kids at that point) and started spewing hate,” the video caption reads.
“This is so important to share as we can’t turn a blind eye to reality. Anti-Zionism is antisemitism, period. I don’t care, try and say it’s not but my three-year-old being thrown out of the store for wearing a kippah—you can’t convince anyone otherwise. And saying that his store only welcomes humans, cats, and dogs but not us, come on. But we are not victims, the Jewish people are not victims and will not let anyone tear away our pride.”
“A comment on the previous post said something along the lines of ‘I am just going to focus on your boy’s response. Everything else is just noise,’ and we couldn’t resonate more. There might be so much hate, but our focus needs to be on love, because that is what is going to heal this world.”
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