Students behind ‘F*** the Jews’ sign at Dave Portnoy’s bar to go on Auschwitz tour
Two waitresses fired and a Temple University student suspended as Jewish founder of Barstool Sports rages over antisemitic incident in his Philadelphia establishment
Two waitresses were fired and a Temple University student suspended on Sunday, after video emerged of a “Fuck the Jews” sign being held up, to a raucous reception among a small crowd, at a bar in downtown Philadelphia owned by Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.
According to Portnoy, who is Jewish, two students requested a sign as part of the bar’s bottle service, asking that it say “Fuck the Jews.” Two waitresses then fulfilled the order, he said, one enthusiastically and the other reluctantly, and neither of them consulted with the management of the bar before doing so.
In an online rant, Portnoy at first threatened “consequences,” but later said that the suspended student and one other student agreed to take a tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp site in Poland. Portnoy said he hoped it would be a “learning experience,” rather than strictly punitive, and urged his followers to stand down amid the online fracas.
The bar said in a statement it was “saddened, embarrassed, and frustrated by the deplorable actions of a customer and misguided staff.”
Temple University president John Fry called the incident “deeply disturbing” and vowed further disciplinary action for anyone involved.
“I’ve been shaking, I’ve been so fucking mad,” said a red-faced Portnoy, whose bro-culture website reaches millions each month, in a video posted to X on Sunday.
“I have just sat, and for the last two hours, I have been on the trail,” he said. “You think I’m going to put up with this shit at my bar?”
Emergency Press Conference – There was a “Fuck the Jews” sign at our Philly bar last night. I am shaking I’m so mad pic.twitter.com/DRlQc9woiA
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 4, 2025
Portnoy said he’d conducted his own investigation into how the sign was put up, because “I want fucking consequences for fucking actions.”
In a second video, posted some two hours later, Portnoy said that two waitresses and two Temple students were involved in the incident.
He said he’d fired both the waitresses, but that he had spoken to both of the students and their families and wanted to use the situation as a “teaching moment.”
“The more I thought about it, these are young fucking morons who did this. They were drunk. It’s like, do you really want to ruin someone’s life?” he said. “Let’s try to turn a hideous incident into maybe a learning experience.”
“We’re going to send these kids to Auschwitz, and they’re going to do a tour of the concentration camps in Germany and hopefully learn something, and maybe their lives aren’t ruined, and most people see it’s not just words you’re throwing around — so to me, that’s a fair outcome of this event.”
There’s a lesson everyone needs to learn from this, if you haven’t already. What gets me isn't just this horrific sign, it's how many people let it happen. Someone designed it. Someone watched their coworker assemble it. Someone walked it through a crowd that cheered, filmed,… pic.twitter.com/ZxrPCyEWlL
— liv (@livlayne_) May 5, 2025
The Barstool founder’s insistence on consequences was applauded online — though some who praised Portnoy’s righteous indignation at first said they were disappointed by his decision to take a reparative approach.
Shlomo Litvin, a prominent Chabad rabbi based in Kentucky, said on X, “Touring a Nazi Polish death camp, controlled by the Polish government alone, does little to combat antisemitism.
“Don’t take them to Poland. Bring them to a Nova exhibit. Have them sit through the Israeli government footage. Have them speak to a survivor of both the Holocaust and Nova, then bring them to a Chabad House for a class and to a Friendship circle to volunteer for a few dozen hours,” he said.
“I can do both,” Portnoy responded.
Emergency Press Conference – I’m sending the people who ordered the “Fuck Jews” signs at my bar to Auschwitz to learn about the Holocaust. Rather than ruin a couple 20 year olds
lives maybe this can be used as a teaching moment pic.twitter.com/sci4hBPBFA— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 4, 2025
He also received plaudits from some elected officials. US Rep. Elise Stefanik, a conservative firebrand from New York who’s made antisemitism a focus, called Portnoy “an American icon.”
US Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania commended Portnoy “for not only immediately working to address the horrific display of hate… but also using it as an opportunity to educate on the tragic history of anti-Jewish hatred and violence.”
Jason Holtzman of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia condemned the incident at the bar and told CBS news, “Ever since [October 7, 2023] we’ve really seen an uptick of hate against Jewish people, vandalism of Jewish institutions, it’s really a disturbing sign of the times.”
Anti-Jewish hate crimes have surged worldwide in the year and a half since the Hamas terror group attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, starting the ongoing war in Gaza.
The Times of Israel Community.