Hymie’s Deli in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. Photo by Hannah Beier for The Washington Post via Getty Images

By Lauren Markoe October 31, 2024

A Philadelphia-area deli owner faced outrage — and hate mail — after allowing an ad for former President Donald Trump to be filmed in his restaurant. Hymie’s Deli owner Louis Barson responded that he would have allowed an ad for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris to be filmed there too.

A film crew arrived on Monday to take him up on that offer. The ad captures a group of Pennsylvanians in a booth at the Philadelphia-area deli — including Jewish former Gov. Ed Rendell — discussing the Trump ad and explaining why they support Harris. The ad began to air on Wednesday, about two weeks after the Trump ad was released.

“Did people think I would lie?” Barson joked, explaining that the request to use his deli as the location for the Harris ad came to him through a friend, like the ad paid for by the Republican Jewish Coalition, whose executive director, a friend of Barson’s from high school, had reached out to him. This time, Barson said, it was a friend involved with the Harris campaign.

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The Harris ad, sponsored by Patriot Majority USA, features Rendell; Lita Cohen, a former Republican member of the Pennsylvania House; Ken Silver, the former Republican leader of Montgomery County, where Hymie’s sits; and Silvi Specter, the granddaughter of Jewish former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who switched between the Democrat and Republican parties.

The Harris ad takes aim at the Trump ad.

Rendell, holding a sandwich, opens the ad by saying he loves the turkey special.

“And I love the lox and bagels,” responds Lita Cohen. “But I’m very upset with that recent Trump ad that stereotypes Jewish people.”

The first ad had featured a trio of women in a booth at Hymie’s, a nearly 70-year-old Jewish deli in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. The actors, who were Jewish or who played Jews, expressed fears — about rising antisemitism and Israel’s security. It was criticized for stereotyping Jewish women and fearmongering.

Jewish Democrats’ reaction to the Trump ad

Many went on social media to accuse the admakers and Barson of trafficking in stereotypes of Jewish women, and pointed to the actors’ dowdy dress, Yiddishy accents, reference to an Ivy League student and one of the actor’s sighs of “oy vey.”

Barson said he dealt fine with threats to boycott the deli. When he explained to upset customers that the deli was just the setting for an ad, and made clear that the deli’s logo would not be prominent in any ad filmed there, most people understood, he said.

But he said he was traveling last week, and returned to find 10 to 15 pieces of hate mail, some of them threatening and with swastikas and references to Hitler on them.

“Where are we in this world?” he said.

Barson, a registered independent who said he has in the past registered as a Democrat and a Republican, declined to say how he would vote in this presidential race.

“I will give you this, and I swear by it,” he said. “I have voted for Rs for president and I have voted for Ds for president.”

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