Israel activists to counter US eatery’s pro-Palestinian fare
Student groups at two Pittsburgh universities launch CoExistence Kitchen to ‘refocus dialogue’ in light of Conflict Kitchen’s cuisine and politics
Israeli advocacy student groups at two Pittsburgh universities plan to open a pop-up eatery themed on the Middle East conflict, to counter a controversial take-out restaurant that highlighted Palestinian suffering.
Students groups at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh say CoExistence Kitchen will seek to fill a void left by Conflict Kitchen, which drew fire after serving Palestinian food accompanied by literature that Jewish groups called one-sided.
According to students, CoExistence Kitchen will offer complimentary kosher and halal Middle Eastern food and will “help to refocus the dialogue from one of just the issues in the region, to instead, what is actively being done every day to bridge peace and coexistence,” say project organizers.
Conflict Kitchen is a restaurant-kiosk in downtown Pittsburgh that serves food from different cultures that the United States is in conflict with. The restaurant only serves food from one country at a time, and changes every six months. Since its opening in 2010, Conflict Kitchen has featured cuisines from Iran, Afghanistan, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela.
Its current iteration is Palestine, and in addition to a Palestinian-themed menu, the eatery also is hosting panel discussions highlighting Palestinian political narratives and distributing literature with their meals that critics call anti-Israel.
The initiative, which does not incorporate Israeli or Jewish perspectives in its material, was widely criticized by Jewish groups, who called its Palestinian-centered programming and absence of any Israeli perspective an effort to dehumanize and delegitimize Israel.
The restaurant was forced to close last week while police investigated a death threat, but re-opened on Wednesday without incident.
Tartans 4 Israel, a campus Israel advocacy group that is sponsoring CoExistence Kitchen, said in a statement the initiative is an effort to expand the political dialogue started by Conflict Kitchen into a wider context.
“There is such a greater conversation to have about this issue. We want to share that,” Tartans 4 Israel president Naomi Sternstein told university newspaper The Tartan.
