Michael Chelst received a call from the building in which his kosher restaurant Char Bar is located in downtown Washington, D.C., at about 11 a.m. on Saturday, informing him that someone had smashed the street-facing windows.
The Metropolitan Police Department subsequently told Chelst that someone reported the vandalism, whose damage Chelst estimates to be between $8,000 and $10,000, at about 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, the restaurant owner told JNS.
“Someone else saw it around 8 or 9 in the morning, and they called again,” he said, noting that the attack occurred “sometime between 10 p.m. and 3:30 in the morning.”
“People are so stupid. What a waste of people’s time and resources,” he told JNS. “That’s what went through my head first. I look at people like that—I more have pity for them. They don’t have a life. For what?”
Four years ago, someone broke windows at the restaurant, which Chelst bought 10 years ago, during riots in Washington that coincided with rallies for the Black Lives Matter movement. No other restaurants on the street were damaged, Chelst told JNS. (An online fundraiser for Char Bar from 2020, which has been revived following the recent attack, has raised $17,587—of a goal of $72,000—from 374 people.)
“These people—probably multiple people, but it could be one person—they brought kind-of cobblestone pavers, not typical rocks which you’re going to find around anywhere near this area,” Chelst told JNS. “They were carrying it. They brought them over and they tossed them.”
“These are rocks that were not local. It was not like someone got drunk and decided that they thought it was fun to smash a window. Picked up a rock from somewhere here and just grabbed one,” he added. “This had to have been premeditated. You had to decide to bring those with the intention of doing damage.”
The vandal or vandals didn’t damage any of the other restaurants on the street, including ones adjacent to Char Bar and across the street. Chelst noted that the attack came hours before the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly, and a rally on Sunday, and it came on the anniversary of Kristallnacht (the “Night of Broken Glass”) on Nov. 9 and 10, 1938, in which hundreds of European synagogues and Jewish buildings were burned and hundreds of Jews were killed.
JNS asked if Chelst thought the vandals were aware that the attack took place on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
“I’m not one to want to be accused of starting conspiracy theories. I don’t know if that person was educated—it certainly could have been,” he said. “It’s symbolic. Breaking glass at night as opposed to doing other things, spray painting or something. It certainly could be that.”
“An attack on the only kosher restaurant in D.C. on the eve of Kristallnacht is designed to terrorize Jews,” wrote Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.). “It is a sign of how emboldened the forces of antisemitism have become in the aftermath of Oct. 7.” (There are other kosher restaurants in Washington.)
“Words have consequences. Hate hardens into violence. Those who insist on inciting hatred against both the Jewish people and the Jewish state are sowing the seeds of pogroms and Kristallnachts in the 21st century,” Torres added. “History will not judge these Jew-haters kindly.”
‘It’s a passion project for me’
Chelst has been in touch with five different officers from different departments. “The police have been all over here,” he said.
JNS asked if the attack is being investigated as a hate crime.
“That’s what I hear,” Chelst said. “That’s what I’ve been told. Someone else said originally it was not reported that way. I believe, from the people I’ve spoken to, that yes.”
A Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson told JNS that “detectives are continuing to investigate, but at this point, there is no information or evidence that this offense was motivated by hate or bias.”
A copy of the incident report, which the Metropolitan Police Department shared with JNS, had the box checked for “no” under “suspected hate crime.”
“MPD received a call regarding a business with the windows being destroyed. Upon arrival, the undersigned officer observed two shattered windows of the establishments with two large stones in front of the business,” per the report. “The area was canvassed with negative results, and no security cameras were seen in the area.”
Char Bar is not only a kosher restaurant, Chelst and others told JNS, but it’s also a fixture in the Jewish community and an important venue for kosher-keeping visitors.
“This is the only sit-down, waiter restaurant that is considered kosher among all people in the area,” Chelst told JNS. “We are here to serve the Jewish population that is in D.C. on any given day. I say that because three-quarters of our clients are customers who are not from D.C.”
Some 10,000 students dine at Char Bar annually, from schools as far as São Paulo, Brazil.
“They need a place to get food, sit down to have stuff there. We’re accommodating them,” Chelst said. “Then we have maybe Ted Cruz or other politicians, and Jack Lew and different people have come in as they’re having political meetings, and ambassadors coming here.” (He referred to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Lew, the U.S. ambassador to Israel and former U.S. treasury secretary.)
“People have conventions here and business meetings, and then in the summer, our restaurant is mostly tourists who come to D.C.,” Chelst said, noting that the restaurant remains open on Passover to accommodate visitors.
“Our entire goal is to serve the Jewish community. It’s a passion project for me,” he said. “It is still a business, but the business part is very much secondary to our goal here, which is to represent D.C. and people to come to D.C. and say, ‘Wow. D.C. is a great place for a kosher diner.'”
Rabbi Hyim Shafner, who has led the Orthodox congregation Kesher Israel in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood since 2017, has a salad named after him on the Char Bar menu. (The Shafner, for $18, consists of mixed lettuce, hearts of palm, avocado, red pepper, crispy chickpeas and tahini ranch.)
“Char Bar is the longest-standing and most permanent and well-known kosher restaurant downtown. It’s a vital service to the community, both to visitors and to all of us who live down here,” the rabbi told JNS.
“It’s just such an important place for us to have meetings and to feel like it really adds to the community,” Shafner said. “Michael, the owner, does such a great job of keeping it going almost as a community service. So it’s kind of devastating.”
“On the one hand, I thought to myself maybe it’s just some hooligans throwing rocks around. But on the other hand, it really was on Kristallnacht, which is just—it’s hard to believe that that’s coincidence and nothing else was damaged except for that,” Shafner added. “It’s part of, I think, the zeitgeist right now, in which Jews feel like it’s OK for people to target us.”
“Who would’ve imagined 20 years ago that you wouldn’t go to synagogue without security?” he said. “What does that mean in a country that’s built on religious freedom? It’s really something that I think our society needs to really wake up and think about.”
‘A truly threatening message’
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch and founder of a Chabad synagogue in Washington, told JNS that “Char Bar is a very important Washington institution, as it gives people in the Jewish community—those who keep kosher and their associates and friends—a chance to get together and eat under the highest level of kosher supervision.”
“It’s an obviously, identifiably Jewish place, and while I guess the investigation is still ongoing, the fact that it is the only eatery struck by this violence on the night of Kristallnacht, leads one to believe that the people, who threw a rock through this window, knew exactly what they were doing,” added Shemtov, who also has a Char Bar salad that bears his name. (The Shemtov, $23, features grilled steak or salmon, romaine, avocado, cucumber, tomato, carrot and lemon vinaigrette.)
“Unfortunately, that has been the default position,” Shemtov told JNS, of the police indicating that there wasn’t an indication of a hate crime. “Law enforcement often changes its position after getting more evidence, so I think we should see what develops as more evidence is gathered.”
“I think people in the Jewish community would probably appreciate if law enforcement would withhold comment at least until the initial stages of an investigation are completed because it’s unsettling to see that so many cases, which end up being deemed hate crimes, were initially not considered so,” he said. “The investigation should consider that. It is obvious that the timing and the specific location of this vandalism at least makes it suspect that it was a hate crime.”
The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington called for a “full investigation and the swift arrest of the perpetrators.”
The American Jewish Committee noted that both Char Bar and another kosher restaurant, Rothschild TLV, in Manhattan were vandalized on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
“The timing of these attacks sends a truly threatening message even as attacks on kosher and Jewish-owned businesses have sadly been carried out with alarming regularity over the past 13 months,” the AJC stated. “We call on local and state governments to take decisive action to protect the Jewish community.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote that “Char Bar is a staple for the D.C. Jewish community, and I’m proud to be a regular.”
“I’m disgusted by this act of vandalism. All of us at ADL stand behind the restaurant’s management and staff,” he wrote. “We urge law enforcement to do everything possible to find those responsible and hold them fully accountable under the law.”
As a Chabad rabbi who is conspicuously Jewish, Shemtov told JNS, “I refuse to be afraid to walk the street, because of how I appear.”
“We, the Jewish people, are living in a precarious time. We, on the one hand, have seen some deterioration, and on the other hand, we have seen some improvements,” Shemtov said. “We’ve been through this before in the course of our history, and I have no doubt that, as before, we will prevail. It’s just a very difficult time right now.”
“We are a resilient nation, and those who thought that they could hurt us or annihilate us before, have found over time that they may have some temporary successes, but we will ultimately prevail,” he added.
‘I’m the guy to help’
Chelst grew up in the Kemp Mill neighborhood in Silver Spring, Md., some 10 miles north of downtown Washington. Though he grew up Modern Orthodox and went to Yeshiva University, he isn’t ritually observant (dati) now.
“That’s why I answered the phone on Saturday,” he told JNS. “I’m not traditional dati.”
Chelst’s brother has been in a kollel for 35 years, and since Chelst isn’t involved in the Orthodox community, running kosher restaurants is his connection, he told JNS. (He added that his wife is the daughter of Holocaust survivors.)
“I’m 50% haredi,” he said. “I told the Vaad,” the kosher certifier, “when I took over that I’m haredi bein adam l’chaveyro, but not so much bein adam l’Makom.” (The terms mean that he practices commandments that are interpersonal but not those that are between man and God.)
“If there are nine people for a minyan, I will definitely go. I’m the guy to help,” he told JNS. “But the minute the 10th person walks in, I’m probably not.”
The “semi-retired” restaurant owner, who works in residential mortgages, runs eateries as a hobby, he said. He is planning to open a kosher restaurant in the Dominican Republic and is in the process of opening one at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va. “The kitchen is already done,” he said.
He is also opening a food truck called Makom on a Roll, in partnership with Makom, which, per its website, works to “support and empower people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to achieve the quality of life to which they aspire.” Adults with disabilities will help staff the truck, Chelst said.
