"Pictures of us were shared online with hate messages, our addresses were shared, calls for fake reviews, at the peak, we were receiving 1,000 notifications an hour."
Inside a Boker Tov restaurant (Image: Boker Tov)[Missing Credit]
It wasn't only messages, however - protesters soon began physically targeting the premises.
"They spat on us, on our windows, shouted at our staff and our customers sitting on the terrace, they damaged furniture, graffitied our walls, and hung posters accusing our guests that they were also committing genocide by eating at our restaurant,” Sas explained.
Boker Tov started to see a decline in sales as boycotters inundated the business with bad reviews, but the owners still tried to de-escalate the situation.
Attempts to break the boycott included speaking about the situation on local talk shows, reaching out for help on social media, and having Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, then mayor of Antwerp, pay one of their restaurants a visit in a show of solidarity.
However, every attempt they made backfired as it gave more fuel to the anti-Israeli protesters in their efforts to close the business down.
The food at Boker Tov (Image: Boker Tov)[Missing Credit]
"It hit us hard,” Sas continued. “We had to make redundancy after redundancy to save money. We were mentally, physically, and emotionally drained. They brought us to our knees.”
After two years of declining business, Sas and Dardikman had no choice but to shut down. Boker Tov’s closure resulted in the loss of dozens of jobs.
The closure comes as Jewish-owned businesses around the world, including many restaurants, have been met with strategic boycotting efforts by activists, with notable cases in New York City and in London.
Michael Freilich, Belgium’s only known Jewish MP and an Antwerp City councillor, told the JC that the forced closure of Boker Tov should be seen as a “stark warning” to Jewish businesses across Europe, including in the UK.
A sign on a Boker Tov window (Image: Boker Tov)[Missing Credit]
He said: "After years of anti-Israel activists boycotting the restaurant, they sadly had no choice but to close down. The boycotters didn't stop until the couple lost what they had built up. After all, nobody is going to want to go to a place that is a target and has been flooded with one-star ratings.
"Despite only wanting to offer Israeli cuisine to residents of Antwerp, Tom and Lori succumbed to the fate at the hands of the protesters.
"This shouldn't be seen in isolation - boycotting Jewish businesses is a trend that seems to be spreading. This is a stark warning to Jewish-owned businesses around Europe, even in countries with a large Jewish population, such as the UK.
According to Freilich, London's substantial Jewish population isn't something that should make Jewish-owned businesses complacent, however.
Antwerp, where three of the four Boker Tov restaurants were located, also has a large Jewish population, with around five per cent of all residents identifying as Jewish, and Boker Tov was hugely popular pre-October 7 to the wider community who wanted a “taste of Israel”. Their large market, along with significant support from suppliers, partners and politicians, was not enough to save them”.
Michael Freilich MP (Image: Michael Freilich)[Missing Credit]
"It's all about the numbers,” Freilich said. “If protesters are abundant and spend a lot of time destroying the image of a place, eventually it will be at risk, as nobody, Jewish or otherwise, will want to go there."
Freilich went on to say that the boycotting trend is a result of the message Hamas spread when they launched the October 7 massacres. "Hamas didn't only kill Jews that day, it made sure to kill everything Jews have built since. We must not succumb to this evil."
And Sas and Dardikman don’t intend to succumb, with the couple already planning to restart the business in a small way, making some changes to the style and the name to mitigate the effect of the brand’s damaged image.
“We see this as a new chapter,” Sas said, “and we will try to write it with the same passion as we did before. We will offer the same love and the same hummus as we did for those five years. We will not let what has happened destroy our spirit.
“The only thing we will never do is hide our identity,” Sas said. “We are who we are.”
