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everything that the state of Israel does,” Pollak says. “Jews are just as diverse as any other cultural group.” Much of the media coverage and criticism has been over funding from the Heinz Endowments and about information pamphlets — sometimes used as togo wrappers — that the restaurant hands out with each order. It’s no surprise that Fox News ran a headline on Oct. 24 reading, “Anti-Israeli restaurant receives funding from John Kerry’s wife’s foundation.” A statement from the Jewish group B’nai B’rith International followed, asking the Heinz Endowments to publicly “disavow” its grant recipient. Heinz distanced itself in a statement but has since run a clarification defending the “right of artists and arts organizations to express their work freely and without fear of reprisal.” Locally, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story on Nov. 6 focusing on the text on the food wrappers. Conflict Kitchen countered with its own statement criticizing the coverage. The wrappers include anecdotes from Palestinians that restaurant staff interviewed this summer. One quote reads, “It’s a Bedouin tradition to serve tea and coffee to guests,” while another reads, “Water, land and government services are taken away from Palestinians and given to Jewish settlers. … They are creating a refugee problem. Israel knows this. They intend for the
settlers to never leave.” “Those quotes have to be taken in the context of the conflict that’s occurring, and often the people that are saying things about their experience are traumatized by the events that are happening,” says Palestinian-American Omar Abuhejleh, owner of Allegro Hearth Bakery in Squirrel Hill and a public-interest attorney. “The problem often is that people look at those visceral reactions and rather than engaging them and talking about them, they want to silence them because they disagree.” Conflict Kitchen says the voices are “central” to their project and that highlighting people’s lives in those regions is the entire point. They’ve handed out the same types of pamphlets with past menu themes — Iranian, Venezuelan, North Korean and Cuban. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, which has criticized Conflict Kitchen’s approach, says the problem goes deeper than pamphlets. The group says it is also troubled by Conflict Kitchen’s partnerships. “Here’s where their argument [for a Palestinian narrative] fails the litmus test,” says Gregg Roman, director of the federation’s Community Relations Council. “They’re not just offering the point of view of people they interviewed. They’re partnering with organizations and people that demonize Israel’s right to exist.”
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 11.19/11.26.2014
CONTINUES ON PG. 10
{BY MATT BORS}
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