Viral antisemitism victim has a history of loud public fights

Jonathan Hirsch has been widely embraced as a victim of antisemitism in the days since he appears to have been thrown out of a Palestinian-owned coffee shop in Oakland for wearing a Star of David baseball cap.

Rep. Adam Schiff, Rep. Ro Khanna, Rep. Barbara Lee, and Sup. Matt Dorsey are among those who have amplified Hirsch’s story, partially caught on video, of wandering with his young son into Jerusalem Coffee House — recently in the news for its Hamas-themed menu — only to have the police called when he refused to leave. Oakland police are working to determine if it meets the criteria of a hate incident.

But Hirsch, a 41-year-old advertising creative who has done contract work for Apple and Airbnb, is no stranger to conflict and controversy. (His LinkedIn page appears to have been deleted after publication.) In at least three other incidents dating back to last November, he has engaged in loud public arguments with strangers, with issues at dispute including Israel and Palestine, local politics and his own driving. 

Some of these incidents were recorded by the other party, some by Hirsch himself. In several, they took place in front of one or more of his young children. At least one other encounter besides the café incident resulted in a call to police. 

In an interview with The Standard, Hirsch acknowledged the pattern of altercations and expressed regret for some of his conduct. But he insisted that most of his behavior was justified and denied that he entered the Jerusalem Coffee House with the intent to provoke, or even with the knowledge that it was the same establishment he’d heard about at his synagogue earlier.

Growing up Jewish and learning about the persecution and murder of his ancestors has left him ready to defend himself when he perceives a threat, he said. “I was raised with the stories of the temperature rising,” he said. “I’m not the most flexible person.” 

On Oct. 20, Hirsch’s birthday, he took his three children to the weekly farmer’s market in Oakland’s Montclair neighborhood, close to where he lives. There, wearing his trademark Hebrew Orphan Asylum cap, he got into a shouting match with supporters of Pamela Price, Oakland’s district attorney, who is facing a recall election. 

Hirsch said the incident started when a man screamed about the upcoming election being “undemocratic,” and Hirsch, thinking the man was a Donald Trump supporter, challenged him.  

“And I kind of laughed and turned to be like, ‘You wanna walk me through that? How is this election undemocratic?’ And he and I were having this conversation about it.” 

At that point, he said, a woman interjected, telling listeners to ignore Hirsch and saying, in Hirsch’s telling, “‘Don’t bother talking to him, don’t bother talking to him at all, he’s a racist and all he cares about is what the millionaire interests are.'”  

Hirsch said he accused the woman of using antisemitic language, which she denied, saying she herself had “Jewish heritage.” 

The woman, activist Heather Phipps, disputed Hirsch’s account. “Those words are a lie,” she said in a phone interview. “I didn’t say a single one of those words to him and there’s zero evidence that I did. In fact, there are witnesses that can tell you I didn’t.”

Video of the incident, posted Oct. 29, shows the pro-Price demonstrators repeatedly asking Hirsch to lower his voice and end the conversation. One of the demonstrators urges him to be mindful of the presence of his three small children, who sit nearby in a wagon. 

Hirsch resists their attempts to end the encounter, insisting he is holding the woman accountable. “I’m calm. I’m using a volume that shames you because you want people not to see what you have been whispering to me,” Hirsch shouts in the video. 

Three weeks earlier, on Sep. 30, Hirsch was involved in a road rage incident in Berkeley that left the other driver so disturbed he reported it to the police. 

In a video of the incident, Hirsch, again with his trademark hat on and at least one child riding in the back of his BMW, is seen yelling from the driver’s seat at the unseen other driver, who pleads with Hirsch to stop yelling and drive away. 

Hirsch told The Standard the argument happened after the other driver honked at him, cursed and gave him the middle finger while passing him in an intersection. 

But the other driver, a Berkeley resident named Jeff, disputed many details of Hirsch’s account. (Jeff asked that his last name be withheld to avoid being dragged into the controversy surrounding Hirsch but a member of The Standard’s newsroom witnessed the incident and confirmed his account.) 

The incident began, Jeff said, when Hirsch attempted a U-turn at a four-way stop sign and almost reversed into Jeff’s vehicle. Jeff honked and drove on, but moments later, Hirsch accelerated past him on the narrow two-lane road, then stopped his car diagonally across the road, blocking Jeff’s. At that point, he rolled down his window and began yelling at Jeff for honking at him, insisting his U-turn was legal. (California law states you can make a U-turn at intersections, but there are conditions when it is not allowed, such as when an approaching vehicle is within 200 feet of your car.) 

“I mean, this guy was out of his mind,” Jeff said. “He’s screaming out the window. Like, how dare I honk at him? All of a sudden, I look, and I see a car seat and a kid, and I’m like, ‘Whoa, dude, you’re a dad.’” 

Jeff was so shaken by the incident he called Berkeley Police Department at around 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 30. Cops told him they couldn’t file a police report as he’d left the scene, so he asked them to conduct a welfare check on Hirsch’s children, providing police with his license plate number. “I was like, ‘Look, you guys should just check on this guy because he seemed unhinged and I’m afraid for his kids.’”

Hirsch said police never conducted a welfare check and called that part of Jeff’s account “the most cynical bullshit I ever heard.”  

Berkeley police did not respond by publication time. 

“The fact that he had the kids in the car and chased down a perfect stranger and did that is insane,” Jeff told The Standard by phone. 

While discussing the three incidents mentioned above, Hirsch volunteered two more videos that show him confronting a man who was ripping down Israeli hostage posters in November last year.

“I was coming home from work late one night and a man was vandalizing the memorial for the hostages in our neighborhood. And so I got out of the car and I saw him. And I let him say as much as he wanted to,” he said. “I also felt like I had to say something, to do something.”

Hirsch, who recorded the encounter, posted the first video on social media, then tracked down the man, Matthew Wilson. He contacted Wilson, inviting him to return to the site to make amends. Wilson did return but brought his own posters — showing Gazans killed by Israel — leading to an argument that Hirsch recorded in a second video.

“You can’t cancel me twice, bud,” Wilson says in the video, seconds after Hirsch started filming.

The pair go back and forth for 20 minutes, Hirsch accusing Wilson of antisemitism and Wilson accusing Hirsch of supporting Israeli propaganda and genocide. 

A friend of Wilson’s repeatedly tries to de-escalate, asking Hirsch to stop filming, but he refuses.

“You’re angry and you’re trying to further instigate,” he tells Wilson.

Reached by phone, Wilson wasted no time making his feelings for Hirsch known.

“Antagonistic and inflammatory are the first two words that come to mind,” Wilson said. “He really seemed to want to get me riled up any way he could.”

Wilson, who sings in the pop-punk band Set Your Goals and makes a living as an options trader, said he got a half-dozen hate messages after Hirsch tagged him in the video of their first encounter.

“It makes me sad,” he added. “It makes me think he’s, like, mentally ill.”

The Standard asked Hirsch if he often finds himself in situations like this and if he felt it was appropriate to argue in front of his children. 

“It’s not a running thing in my life,” Hirsch said. “I have to get better at understanding, like, the difference between how to hold my ground and how to stand my ground. I think the car was a situation that was something I shouldn’t have done.” 

But regarding the cafe incident, Hirsch said he continued to believe he was right to stand his ground in front of his son after the cafe owner, citing Hirsch’s “violent hat,” told him he needed to leave. 

“It’s so hard to describe that we were sitting there and playing a game of chess, and my son was scared of this guy,” he said. “The tension between do I get the F out of here right away? Or do I show him what my grandparents told me about — when the shtetls became the ghettos, became going off to the camps.”

This article has been updated to include comment from Heather Phipps.