(wikicommons/ Pinhas Stern)
We have no sympathy for Jews for Jesus. We wish it were not operating a cafe in Jerusalem — or anywhere else — and understand why Jews find its missionary activities deeply offensive. But that is precisely why what happened at Cafe Basimta matters.
After two months of relentless Haredi protests and intimidation, the Jerusalem cafe operated by Jews for Jesus announced that it will no longer open on Shabbat. Protesters gathered outside week after week. There were threats, banging on windows and overturned tables. Someone glued the cafe’s lock. Police repeatedly intervened.
Eventually the protesters got what they wanted. That is not a victory for Shabbat. It is a victory for mob rule.
Jerusalem has not left the question of Shabbat commerce unanswered. Its municipal rules generally require ordinary businesses to close while permitting restaurants and cafes to operate within defined restrictions, including limitations on hours, entertainment and outdoor service. A Jerusalem court confirmed that arrangement in 2023.
The city has already drawn a legal line between preserving the public character of Shabbat and allowing those who choose differently to do so. The protesters were not demanding enforcement of Jerusalem’s Shabbat rules. They were demanding that their rules replace them.
Jerusalemites who believe purchasing coffee on Shabbat violates Jewish law have a simple remedy: Don’t purchase coffee on Shabbat. Those who abhor Jews for Jesus — as we do — have another: Don’t patronize its cafe.
They may protest, distribute literature, urge others to stay away, condemn missionary activities and warn their neighbors about it. What they may not do is make the lawful operation of a business so threatening and disruptive that its operators conclude they have no practical choice but to surrender.
There is an enormous difference between practicing Judaism and imposing Judaism; between persuasion and coercion. The protesters argue that opening a cafe on Shabbat in an overwhelmingly observant area is itself a provocation. But being offended does not confer a veto. A pluralistic society inevitably exposes us to conduct, speech and religious practices we dislike.
Jews should understand that principle better than most. We have spent centuries demanding the right to practice our religion even when majorities around us objected. Religious liberty cannot mean freedom for us when we are the minority and compulsory conformity when we become the majority.
Nor should anyone imagine this ends with Cafe Basimta. Yad L’Achim, an anti-missionary Haredi organization, has reportedly declared that the struggle will continue until the cafe closes altogether. Once intimidation succeeds, why stop at Shabbat hours? Why stop at this cafe?
Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state. Its Jewish character matters enormously. So does Shabbat. But the sanctity of Shabbat is not enhanced by threats, overturned tables or frightened customers. Judaism is not strengthened when religious observance is extracted through intimidation.
The tragedy is not that Jews for Jesus lost the ability to sell coffee on Saturday. We can live comfortably with that. The tragedy is how it happened. People who disliked a lawful choice made by others applied intimidation until that choice disappeared.
That is not religious devotion. It is coercion. And Jerusalem should be ashamed that it worked.