(JEWISH GROUP) A bagel shop backed out of a Jewish food festival over Israel. Then regret set in.

(IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP!)

Isaac Henrion makes and sells bagels for a living. But when he spent Sunday afternoon at the local Jewish food festival in Durham, North Carolina, he didn’t bring any of his own fare.

It’s not that he hadn’t signed up as a vendor. It’s that he had abruptly pulled out his store, Isaac’s Bagels, after facing criticism over his cooperation with the festival organizer, a Jewish group that supports Israel.

Then, that decision set off another round of criticism from Jewish customers and supporters, as well as from the influencer Jessica Seinfeld — prompting him to apologize.

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The saga offers a fresh example of the painful dynamics that have shaken Jewish communities repeatedly over the last year and a half, since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Critics of Israel’s military actions have in many cases imposed ideological purity tests on authors, performers and business owners, demanding that they repudiate Israel and Zionism and break any ties, no matter how unrelated, with organizations that do not. In some communities, longstanding relationships have fractured under the pressure.

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