TheQuartering [11/8/2023]
A Jewish-owned Manhattan coffee shop was on the verge of having to shut its doors for the day Tuesday after its anti-Israel baristas walked out — until members of the Jewish community showed up in droves volunteering to work shifts and lining up around the block to buy a brew.
Caffe Aronne owner Aaron Dahan said he was left short-staffed at his Upper East Side location after he tried to talk to two of the baristas about their Free Palestine pins.
But instead of hearing him out and understanding him, they walked off the job — becoming the latest staffers to leave over the cafe’s pro-Israel support.
“Our staff was young. They think they know everything, liberal, college-educated,” Dahan, who is Jewish, told The Post on Tuesday.
“They think we’re supporting genocide, we’re supporting colonialism. They know the keywords but they don’t really know what they mean.”
The 25-year-old owner said a total of five baristas have left since Oct. 7, the day Hamas attacked Israel.
The shop had put up an Israeli flag a “couple of weeks ago” and started a fundraiser to help Magen David Adom — the Israeli Red Cross — and “our staff was not for it,” Dahan, said.
Dahan, who was at a catering event today, said he is disappointed by the resignations from his workers, who he considered “family.”
“We knew our staff. We knew they were thinking these things. I said, ‘Let’s go for dinner. Let’s sit. Let’s ask questions. Let’s learn. Let’s realize that we’re not all here trying to kill each other,” Dahan said.
His mother, Peggy Dahan, 50, took over the store after receiving a call from her son this morning asking her to shut the location, which has only been open for 10 months, down for the day.