![\"Goldman\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AP26134504094918-1782194641.jpg\")
Representative Dan Goldman speaks during a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, July 2, 2025 [Mariam Zuhaib\/AP]<\/p>\nThe United States Department of Justice has opened a civil rights probe into a New York coffee chain that announced it would not serve a Democratic lawmaker over his support for Israel.<\/p>\n
Harmeet K. Dhillon, the top civil rights prosecutor at the Justice Department, said on Monday that she had ordered the investigation after Poetica Coffee, a small Uzbek-inspired cafe chain, declared on social media that US House Representative Dan Goldman was not welcome at its stores.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThese actions are not only reprehensible, they\u2019re potentially illegal,\u201d Dhillon, an appointee of US President Donald Trump, said in a post on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Civil Rights Division has opened an investigation, and will bring an enforcement action if warranted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poetica Coffee, which has seven branches in Brooklyn and the East Village, made the comments on Sunday after Goldman had visited one of its cafes with his daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see that you stopped by our shop today for a coffee,\u201d Poetica Coffee said in\u00a0Facebook and Instagram\u00a0posts that were accompanied by a picture of Goldman at\u00a0its Lorimer Street, Brooklyn branch.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you see how it doesn\u2019t taste like genocide juice? Or are you still having a hard time telling the difference?<\/p>\n
\u201cSee, here at Poetica, we don\u2019t serve racists, fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers, or anyone in between,\u201d Poetica Coffee continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo bad we didn\u2019t recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poetica Coffee\u00a0added that it had refunded Goldman $9.82 he spent at the branch and that he should never return.<\/p>\n
Poetica Coffee and its founder, Parviz Mukhamadkulov, did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Representative Dan Goldman speaks during a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, July 2, 2025 [Mariam Zuhaib\/AP]<\/p>\n
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Goldman lamented the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve lost, I think, some perspective on decorum and appropriateness and just decency and conversation,\u201d Goldman said.<\/p>\n
But the New York congressman said he did not believe the coffee chain should be investigated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would rather they spend their time and resources investigating anti-Semitism against people who do not have a platform that I do, who are not elected officials,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It is unclear on what legal basis the Justice Department would be able to take enforcement action against Poetica Coffee.<\/p>\n
While both US federal and New York state law prohibit businesses from refusing service on the basis of various protected characteristics, including race, religion, sex, and national origin, those protections do not extend to political belief or ideology.<\/p>\n
Goldman is known as a vocal supporter of Israel within the Democratic Party, describing himself as a \u201cproud Zionist and steadfast supporter\u201d of the country.<\/p>\n
Goldman, who is facing a primary challenge from vocal Israel critic Brad Lander, received campaign donations worth nearly $195,000 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which\u00a0backs\u00a0pro-Israel candidates for office, and affiliated groups during the current election cycle.<\/p>\n
Goldman has denied that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, though he has described the situation in the enclave as \u201chorrific\u201d and called for an end to fighting there.<\/p>\n
He has also been highly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling his government \u201cextremist\u201d and expressing opposition to the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States Department of Justice has opened a civil rights probe into a New York coffee chain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3366,7021,3365,5669,9,24,55,54,12,56,87,901,2272],"class_list":["post-274995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-business-and-economy","tag-civil-rights","tag-economy","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274995","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=274995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}