Israeli-Palestinian restaurant shutters in Berlin, though a TV show will continue its story

Aerial view of skyline of Berlin, Germany. Photo by Bluejayphoto/iStock

(JTA) — An Israeli-Palestinian restaurant in Berlin that became internationally known for its “Make hummus not war” message is closing after 10 years — but a new TV series will extend its story.

Kanaan, a hummus bar run by Oz Ben David, an Israeli, and Jalil Dabit, a Palestinian, has announced it will shutter in March. The partners evolved their restaurant into a platform for  promoting peace and dialogue, but in recent years, they fought a string of economic challenges along with local tensions emanating from the Gaza war.

“Running a daily restaurant became too heavy,” they said in a post on Instagram. “The pandemic, the wars and the economic situation, all of those were too much.”

Now, the German production company Traumfabrik Babelsberg says it’s making a new dramedy series based on the Israeli-Palestinian duo. The show called “Breaking the Binary” was announced at a launch party in January, where the creators said they joined Ben David and Dabit over “a shared meal as a symbol of exchange and encounter.”

Ben David and Dabit are contributing to the writing and character development of the series. It will feature Mirna Funk, a German-Jewish author and journalist, as well as Yousef Sweid, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who appeared in the acclaimed Netflix series “Unorthodox” and HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”

The partners briefly closed Kanaan after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, battling doubts about the credibility of their anti-war message. Six days later, they reopened with the determination to leverage their restaurant as a symbol of hope.

They organized free educational programs on cooking and prejudice, joining Palestinian refugees from Gaza with members of Berlin’s Israeli community. In November, they published a cookbook titled “Kochen ohne Grenzen,” or “Cooking Without Borders,” compiling their recipes together with those of rabbis, imams and priests in Berlin.

But while these projects won international recognition, Kanaan was battered by economic uncertainty and a fraught political environment. Far-left and far-right activists protested the “normalization” of an Israeli and a Palestinian working together. Meanwhile, many customers surveyed by the restaurant said they were fatigued by conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and they preferred to unwind with a night of sushi or Italian food.

“‘We don’t understand if you are pro-Israel or pro-Palestine.’ That’s something that we heard a lot,” Ben David said last year.

In 2024, Kanaan was ransacked after hosting a Jewish-Muslim brunch. Months later, an Israeli woman was assaulted by four people while wearing Kanaan’s signature pin, which depicts a heart divided between the Israeli and Palestinian flags.

Ben David and Dabit said they will continue to share their food through other formats, including pop-ups, catering, educational projects and collaborations.

“This chapter is coming to an end — but Kanaan is not,” they said.