Beloved Israeli cafe in NYC vandalized with graffiti: ‘Form line here to support genocide’
NY Post
A popular Israeli eatery on the Upper West Side was vandalized with spray-painted blood-red and black messages reading, “Free Gaza” and “Form line here to support genocide” — and the NYPD is now probing the incident as a possible hate crime.
The vandalism targeted Effy’s Café, an American-Israeli breakfast mainstay at 104 W. 96th St. and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan for more than a decade.
“Free Gaza” was splashed across the front of the kosher bistro in red and again in green paint on the sidewalk in front of it Saturday, while “Form a line here to support genocide” was written in black on the concrete outside, too.
Police told The Post that the incident is under investigation by the department’s Hate Crime Task Force.
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and Upper West Side state Assembly candidate Micah Lasher visited Effy’s on Monday for brunch in a show of support for the restaurant.
“We came to show solidarity and support. To call this incident what it was — anti-Semitic hate. To demand that Albany expand the hate crimes law. And to make clear that New York will never be a place where this is tolerated, condoned, or chalked up to reasonable political discourse,” Lasher wrote on X.
