For three months, the banner hung outside a Paterson tobacco shop, with a message designed to provoke.
“Stop the New Nazis,” it proclaimed, with a blue swastika emblazoned over an Israeli flag and a picture of longtime Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defaced with a Hitler-like mustache.
The sign finally detonated over the weekend after pictures were posted online, stirring anger among local residents who condemned it as antisemitic and insensitive.
By Monday, the owners of Clifton Hookah had taken the banner down. It was meant as a critique of Israeli government policy toward Palestinians, but the argument was getting lost amid the controversy, said Layla Samara, an employee whose family owns the store.
“When we put it up, we knew it would spark controversy,” she said in an interview. “It was supposed to make people uncomfortable. Talks like this need to be happening.”
Samara said she was trying to draw a comparison with Israel’s harsh treatment of Palestinians, including expelling families from their longtime homes and killing and injuring protesters and civilians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Critics saw the banner differently, especially coming amid a surge in anti-Jewish attacks around the world and the raw emotions that followed last month’s 11-day war between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.
“We are horrified to see such an obscene banner comparing the Jewish nation and former PM to Nazis,” said Liora Rez of StopAntisemitism.org, a nonprofit whose Saturday tweet about the sign sparked the outrage. “When antisemitism and violence towards Jewish Americans is at an all-time high, members of the community need to stand together and build bridges, not fan the flames of hatred as the owner of Clifton Hookah has done.”
Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh, who has spoken out for Palestinian causes, called the sign “repulsive” and “offensive.” He said he learned of it on Friday and reached out to the Pasasic County prosecutor and the city’s police and legal department looking for a way to have the banner removed.
“It just displays ignorance,” Sayegh said. “The swastika has so much sensitivity around it. It symbolizes hatred and what happened with the Holocaust. You have to be mindful of that.”
Samara, however, was unapologetic on Monday, arguing that the Israeli government is the “new modern-day Nazi” and “the reason Palestinians are being killed, terrorized and ethnically cleansed.”
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Some customers asked about the sign, and others said they were upset by it. Samara said she was aiming her criticism at Israel’s government and not Jewish people.
“We know the Israeli government is not the people. We are not antisemitic,” Samara said, adding that her grandmother is a Palestinian refugee who fled to Venezuela before coming to the United States.
The banner’s attack on Netanyahu, at least, was outdated by Monday. Israel’s longest-serving prime minister was ousted over the weekend, pushed out by a fragile coalition of far-right, center-left and Arab Israeli parties.
His replacement, Naftali Bennett, opposes an independent Palestinian state. But to keep the coalition intact, he and more centrist allies have agreed to focus on the economy and other domestic areas, rather than contentious issues like Israeli-Palestinian relations.
Samara said she stood by the banner’s message. But the shop decided on Monday that the intent was getting lost in the debate, she said.
“We took it down because we didn’t want to cause pain to a community that we love,” she said. “The bigger issue is to free Palestine. We can’t free Palestine by arguing.”
The 4-year-old shop, she said, has posted political signs in the past, including “Dump Trump 2020” and “Black Lives Matter” after George Floyd’s killing. Those signs sparked complaints from the community but also support, according to Samara.
Sayegh said he was glad to hear that the new banner had been removed. Paterson is home to a large Palestinian community. But the mayor said peaceful rallies and discussion are what should drive the debate, not a “sadistic symbol” like the swastika that is “rooted in hate.”
The sign was “absolutely deplorable but unfortunately not surprising,” said Steven Goldberg, a longtime Clifton resident who organizes the annual Israeli flag raising there. “Throughout history people have excused their own Jew hatred with false premises. In 2021, that reason seems to be anti-Zionism.”
Hannan Adely is a diversity reporter specializing in Arab-American affairs for NorthJersey.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @adelyreporter
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