New York City\u2019s only Ethiopian-Israeli restaurant has closed its doors for regular dining, citing the backlash it faced during the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Beejhy Barhany, who opened Tsion Cafe in Harlem in 2014, recently announced that she is reimagining her restaurant as an event venue for culturally immersive experiences. That means no walk-ins, only group bookings made in advance.<\/p>\n
Barhany sees the new model as a prime opportunity to educate New Yorkers about her culture. But she said the change represents a sad concession to the realities of Jewish life in the city since Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything kind of changed \u2014\u00a0so much animosity,\u201d she said. Things got even worse, she said, when she dropped meat from the menu in February 2024 to go fully vegan and kosher<\/a> \u2014\u00a0a move that drew plaudits from Jews in the city but also raised Tsion\u2019s profile among critics of Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cI was proud to be Jewish. I wanted to illuminate that,\u201d she said. \u201cBut from the moment we pivoted to be kosher, it became worse and worse.\u201d<\/p>\n People would call the restaurant and harass whoever picked up the phone, Barhany said. One day, she recalled, a server at the restaurant was standing outside and \u201ca bunch of Gen Z\u2019s\u201d passing through said, \u201cDon\u2019t ever come to this place. It\u2019s owned by Israelis. By Zionists.\u201d<\/p>\n While some Israeli restaurants that faced harassment drew public attention and support, Tsion, located off the beaten track in Harlem, did not. Barhany said she did not seek to publicize the incidents, hoping that they would recede in prominence. But they took a toll.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of tiring,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re here to nourish the community and it feels like you are perceived like the enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n Hosting groups of Jewish visitors had offered a respite. So when Barhany recently took part in \u201cStoryCourse: Diaspora<\/a>,\u201d in which she and three other Jewish chefs shared their recipes and their stories of how they made their way to New York, she realized it pointed toward a model of dining as a cultural experience, rather than a traditional restaurant.<\/p>\n In Tsion\u2019s new model, guests will register in advance for \u201ccurated, culturally immersive and experiential events\u201d that, at least at first, will focus on Barhany\u2019s own culture.<\/p>\n \u201cYou will come and be immersed in the culture,\u201d she said. \u201cYou will have a hand wash, Ethiopian-style, and we will bring frankincense. We will have a coffee ceremony and I will talk about Jewish Ethiopian cuisine, culture and history.\u201d<\/p>\n Guests will be served Ethiopian foods like messer wot (red lentil stew), gomen hamli (braised collard greens) or qey sir (braised beets).<\/p>\n \u201cI am calling it The Gursha Experience. Gursha is the Amharic word for nourishment, feeding, story telling,\u201d said Barhany. It is also the name of her recently published cookbook, named by The New York Times as one of the best cookbooks of 2025<\/a>, that showcases recipes in the context of her life story.<\/p>\n The post Citing anti-Israel backlash, NYC\u2019s only Ethiopian-Israeli eatery ends regular dine-in hours<\/a> appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s only Ethiopian-Israeli restaurant has closed its doors for regular dining, citing the backlash it faced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9868,30754,55609,55610,34590,2601,9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-129099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-cooking","9":"tag-cuisine","10":"tag-ethiopian-cuisine","11":"tag-food-and-drink-preparation","12":"tag-foods","13":"tag-jews-and-judaism","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-staten-island","18":"tag-staten-island-headlines","19":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}