Palestinian restaurant opening near Columbia names its location to honor girl killed in Gaza, campus protesters

The first Ayat location in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Screenshot of Google Streetview

(JTA) — A Palestinian restaurant in New York City has named its new location “Hinds Hall” after the moniker pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University gave to a campus building they occupied last spring.

In a post on Instagram on Thursday, the restaurant, Ayat NYC, which has eight locations, announced that its new storefront in Morningside Heights would be renamed in solidarity with the protesters at Columbia.

“It stands right next to Columbia University where students stood up for Gaza and renamed Hamilton Hall, a campus building to Hinds Hall and we choose to stand with them and carry that name forward,” the post read.

Critics of Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protests at the time accused its participants of antisemitism and calling for violence against Jews. In June, a report by the Columbia University Task Force on Antisemitism found that over half of its Jewish student body had experienced discrimination and exclusion after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

The new location for the restaurant, which is owned by restaurateur Abdul Elenani and his wife, Ayat Masoud, faced criticism from some of the neighborhood’s Jewish residents, who say they have been overwhelmed by pro-Palestinian symbols and sentiment since Columbia became an epicenter of the encampment movement last year.

Ayat wove pro-Palestinian advocacy into its practices throughout the war in Gaza. In January 2024, one of its locations drew a public outcry after its menu featured the phrase “From the River to the Sea,”  a phrase frequently used by pro-Palestinian activists that Jewish watchdogs view as a call for Israel’s destruction. Afterwards, the location hosted a free Shabbat dinner for over 1,300 people that drew anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian Jews and others.

“Our restaurants will not only ever serve food. It will serve memory, truth, and responsibility,” the new post from Ayat NYC continued. “The least we can do is carry her name in our hearts and on our storefront so that everyone who walks by knows that Hind mattered and every single child matters.”

The location’s name, which was also adopted in a song by rapper Macklemore, pays homage to Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in Gaza in January 2024. (The Israeli military denied responsibility for her death, but a Washington Post investigation found that Israeli armored vehicles were present in the area.)

Her heavily publicized death, and the phone call she made to paramedics with the Palestine Red Crescent Society while stranded in a vehicle, also inspired the docudrama “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which won a top prize at the Venice Film Festival in September.

“Her name carries the weight of all the children whose voices were silenced and whose blood was treated like it meant nothing,” the post by Ayat NYC continued.

An opening date has not yet been set for the Upper West Side location. A new location opened in late October in Astoria, the Queens neighborhood that is home to Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and home to a thriving pro-Palestinian activist community.