Berkeley coffee shop owners speak out after they say they have been vandalized four times in the span of a month in a half.
Napa natives Mejdi, Noor and Sami Gaith own Jaffa Coffee Roasters on Berkeley’s University Avenue. The brothers also have Palestinian roots.
“We actually were in Jaffa, in Palestine one day and he [Noor] said he wanted to start a coffee shop and he thought it’d be a good idea for us to all join forces,” Mejdi Gaith said.
The specialty shop is just over three months old, proudly infusing their Palestinian roots into the décor, menu and displaying a "Free Palestine" sign in their window as the Israel-Hamas war stretches into its 11th month.
But the sign is really ticking someone off. The owners said the vandal has been seen on camera returning four times to vandalize the shop.
“Spray paint maker, it happened on the sixth of July, the 11th of July, the 14th of July, and then, the 15th of August,” said Mejdi Gaith.
An escalation with the latest vandal that took less than a minute.
“We don’t tolerate hate anywhere and that’s something that we really stand by as a family, as operators, as humans,” Mejdi Gaith said.
Berkeley police told NBC Bay Area on Wednesday that they are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
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This comes as the California Attorney General’s Office reported in June from 2022 to 2023, anti-Islamic or Muslim bias events increased by 60% with the last quarter, seeing an increase in anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic rhetoric and actions.
“We showcase our identities to show people that freeing Palestine is an OK thing to say. It’s not antisemitic. We’re in fact, people of the semites as well,” Noor Gaith said. “I don’t know what we need to do as Palestinians to prove that we also deserve freedom.”
