A conservative Jewish journalist is suing a Brooklyn bar and its bartender for allegedly refusing to serve him and heckling him after he was forced to leave.
According to the Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit by Elad Eliahu, 29, who describes himself as a “proud Jewish-American,” the independent journalist was on a first date with a woman at Swell Dive in Bedford-Stuyvesant on April 9 when he claims he was harassed and humiliated by the bartender and forced to leave the bar over being a Zionist, the New York Post reported.
Eliahu is claiming in the lawsuit, which was filed on Friday, that the bartender Alvin Dan singled him out by asking him if he was “in fact Elad, and purposely mispronounced his name."
The suit details that Dan allegedly harassed Eliahu by telling him to leave the bar “or he was going to embarrass” him. It further alleges that the bartender called Eliahu a “Zionist Fascist” and falsely accused him in front of his date and other bar customers of “harass[ing[ abortion patients” and doxxing people with his reporting.
Eliahu says in the court filing that he told his date to leave the establishment for her safety and that when he left, the bartender recorded himself following the journalist down the street while continuing to harass him.
“Why are you walking away?” Dan allegedly said while filming, the suit claims. “That’s Elad, I can’t believe it, cannot believe that [he] has the balls to have a [expletive] social life.”
The suit also claims that Eliahu, who has 22,000 followers on Twitter, was told by Dan to never return to the neighborhood.
Eliahu “was unlawfully ridiculed, discriminated against, denied service and kicked out of the Swell Dive on account of his race, national origin and creed because he identifies as a Zionist,” the lawsuit says.
According to the court filing, Dan proceeded to post further videos of himself on Instagram in which he made disparaging remarks about Eliahu in reference to him being a Zionist.
Eliahu told the Post that the incident left him “very embarrassed.”
When he contacted the bar on Instagram to tell them about the alleged harassment by the bartender, they responded: “Sounds like your displeasure is with the bartender not the bar,” according to the suit.
“I was wrongfully refused to be served by a bartender and I believe [it was] because I am Jewish,” Eliahu said. “I believe if I wasn’t Jewish then he wouldn’t have said or done these things.”