20 May ONE BITE OF A MITZVAH – WHAT DAVE PORTNOY GOT WRONG

Dave Portnoy is a
s u c c e s s f u l
businessman with a
large following
online. He sold the
company he founded,
Barstool Sports, for
$500 million, and bought it back a few
years later for $1. Millions follow him on
social media and watch his daily pizza
reviews around the country, including a
review of matza pizza right here in Boca
Raton.
Portnoy is Jewish, something he doesn’t
hide but also doesn’t regularly reference
or promote. He has occasionally displayed
his Judaism, such as when Chabad put
Tefillin on him or more recently, when he
celebrated the defeat of an MMA fighter
who had praised Hitler by putting on a
yarmulka and waving an Israeli flag in the
front row of the match. Soon after October
7, he spoke out in support of Israel and has
since then publicly defended Israel’s right
to exist and to defend itself.
Yet, nothing has made Portnoy as
outspoken about his Jewishness or
aggressively stand up for the Jewish
people like the antisemitic incident that
happened at his Philadelphia bar a couple
of weeks ago. Customers who order bottle
service there are offered customizable
letter boards, which they can ask staff
members to arrange with messages of their
choice. A student or two from Temple
University who visited the bar asked staff
members to arrange the letters on his sign
into an antisemitic message including an
expletive directed at the Jewish people.
The incident was a staff breakdown and,
more importantly, an expression of hate.
Portnoy took to his social media to
communicate his outrage. “I’ve been
shaking I’ve been so mad. I’m gonna
make it my life mission to ruin these
people, like I’m coming for your throat.”
However, a few hours later, he posted
another video saying he had reconsidered
his approach, and instead had decided to
send the young men responsible for the
hate speech on a tour of Auschwitz to learn
about the impact of hate.
He explained: “My initial reaction was
like I’m going to burn these people to the
ground, their families, everything, and it’s
like you know what? Maybe that’s not the
best course of action. Maybe I can use this
as a teaching moment, and like before,
people just are like the Jews or any group,
and the hate, let’s try to like turn a hideous
incident into maybe a learning experience,

as cliche and very unlike me. But I talked
to both the culprits, who I know are super
involved in it, talked to the families. I’m
sending these kids to Auschwitz. They’ve
agreed to go, that’s of course, the
Holocaust concentration camps…and
hopefully learn something. And maybe
like their lives aren’t ruined, and they
think twice, and more importantly, other
people like see it’s not just like words
you’re throwing around. So to me, that’s a
fair outcome of this event.”
Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick
applauded Portnoy for addressing the
“horrific display of hate” and using it as an
opportunity to educate about anti-Jewish
violence, saying, “Antisemitism needs to
be identified, called out, and crushed.”
A few days later, Portnoy gave an update
saying he had “revoked” the trip to Poland
because at least one of the people involved
“is no longer taking responsibility” for the
sign.
Though he didn’t end up sending the
perpetrators to tour Auschwitz, the strategy
of responding to antisemitism by sending
antisemites for a Holocaust education is
nothing new. In 2006, Mel Gibson spewed
antisemitic remarks during a DUI arrest.
Though not mandated by a court, Gibson
met with Jewish leaders and visited the
Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of
Tolerance in Los Angeles. In 2014, two
British teenagers vandalized a synagogue
with antisemitic graffiti. As part of their
community service, they were sent to visit
Auschwitz. In 2018, Nick Conrad released
a controversial music video titled “Hang
White People”, which contained
antisemitic undertones. A French court
ordered him to visit the Holocaust
Memorial in Paris as part of a court ruling.
The examples could go on and on but the
question is, should they? Certainly,
Holocaust education is important.
Keeping the legacy of 6 million martyrs
alive and relevant, teaching the truth about
this historically unique genocide matters.
But is it the proper or effective response to
contemporary antisemitism?
Dara Horn, the author of “People Love
Dead Jews,” thinks not. In her article, “Is

Holocaust Education Making Anti-
Semitism Worse? Using dead Jews as

symbols isn’t helping living ones,” she
writes: “I have come to the disturbing
conclusion that Holocaust education is
incapable of addressing contemporary
anti-Semitism. In fact, in the total absence
of any education about Jews alive today,

teaching about the Holocaust might even
be making anti-Semitism worse.”
She writes: “The Holocaust educators I
met across America were all obsessed with
building empathy, a quality that relies on
finding commonalities between ourselves
and others. But I wondered if a more
effective way to address anti-Semitism
might lie in cultivating a completely
different quality, one that happens to be
the key to education itself: curiosity. Why
use Jews as a means to teach people that
we’re all the same, when the demand that
Jews be just like their neighbors is exactly

what embedded the mental virus of anti-
Semitism in the Western mind in the first

place? Why not instead encourage inquiry
about the diversity, to borrow a de rigueur
word, of the human experience?”
This article was published in May of 2023,
five months before the most murderous
day of Jews since the Holocaust, and I fear
her thesis has only been strengthened.
Teaching only about the Holocaust without
teaching about the Jewish people, Jewish
values and ideals, Jewish contributions to
the world, Jewish culture and practice
only focuses on Jews as victims. But
today’s antisemite learns about the
Holocaust and sees the Jewish people as
the committer of a current genocide
instead of the victim, as perpetrating a
Holocaust instead of experiencing one.
Another famous Jew has been targeted
with hate for his Judaism, but he has
responded in a very different way. Michael
Rapaport is an award-winning actor,
comedian and podcaster. Since October 7
he has not only visited Israel countless
times, he has relentlessly dedicated his
online influence to advocating for Israel
and the Jewish people. Asked about how
October 7 impacted him, he said, “My
Judaism has changed 100%. I am more in
tune with it. I’m more proud, I’m more
aware, I’m more educated. I’m more
proactive in every single way possible and
I’m really glad about that.”
Asked how his belief in G-d has changed,
he answered: “I believe in G-d in a
different way. I believe in Hashem in a
different way. I celebrate and understand
him in a different way. I think we have
nothing but faith. You have to have faith.
That’s been one of the good things that has
come from this last year for me personally.”
Michael Rapaport now wraps tefillin and
says about it, “Every single time is a
blessing, every single time is a Mitzvah.”
Certainly, we must confront antisemites,

hold them accountable, throw the book at
them and, when possible, seek to reform
them. Educating may be a first step, but it
cannot be the whole strategy. The answer
is to not focus on their education, like
Dave Portnoy did, but to focus on ours, as
Michael Rapaport is. Our response to acts
of antisemitism must be more Jewish
pride, more Jewish practice, stronger
Jewish identity, increased Torah
observance.
Rather than reward the hateful hoodlums
with a trip to Poland, Portnoy should
announce he is going to Israel. He should
put on a Magen Dovid necklace if not a
yarmulka, hang a mezuzah on his home
and office, engage his Judaism and Jewish
learning in a meaningful way.
When doing one of his famous pizza
reviews, before he takes a bite and gives a
score, Portnoy proudly announces “one
bite, everyone knows the rules.” But the
truth is, while everyone may know the
rules, he does not follow them: he doesn’t
take one bite, he takes several and when
the pizza tastes particularly good, he can’t
help himself from finishing the whole
slice.
Describing a relationship with Hashem,
Dovid HaMelech (Tehillim 34:9) taught,
Ta’amu u’ru ki tov Hashem, taste and you
will see that Hashem is good. Why does
he employ the word taste, why not just say
see that Hashem is good? Faith begins
with practice. You can’t just listen, read
about or think about Hashem, you must
engage, act and then you will see with
clarity a life of meaning, purpose and
eternity. It begins with a taste, a little
something and you will want more.
We must confront antisemitism but not
just with stories or tours of Jewish
victimhood. Instead of focusing on
educating others, educate yourself, your
children and Jews all around us to be
living richly proud and practicing Jewish
lives.
Start with one thing. Just one bite of a
mitzvah and you will want more and more.