First, a Flensburg shop drew outrage for banning Jews. Now a celebrated Fürth pizzeria has posted a notice banning Israelis. Here is the owner's background and how the story unfolded.

Fifty-year-old Gaspare Squitieri was born and raised in the small town of Sarno, Italy, 21 miles east of Naples. Squitieri has been working in the pizza business since he was 13 years old. He has lived in Germany since at least 2014, where he teaches professional pizza courses at Accademia della Pizza Deutschland in Nuremberg.

Gaspare Squitieri opened his pizzeria in partnership with Matteo Celentano in Fürth, Germany, on October 20, 2019, under the name Naples - authentic Neapolitan Pizza. Squitieri and Celentano parted ways in 2021, and Squitieri renamed his establishment Pizza Zulu. The pizzeria relocated to its current address, Königstraße 81, in September 2023. The logo above the door features an illustration of Squitieri with a beard and bald head. Squitieri has earned a reputation as one of the best pizza chefs in the world. In 2023, Pizza Zulu was ranked as the best pizza in Germany, 5th best in Europe, and 32nd best in the world.

Then, on Wednesday, September 24, everything changed when Squitieri posted, in plain view of all the customers, a sign on the restaurant's wall noticeboard that banned Israelis from his establishment. Suddenly, Pizza Zulu's hard‑won reputation for culinary excellence was no longer the focus.

The sign read as follows: "Liebe Kunden, wir lieben alle Menschen, egal woher sie kommen. Wir glauben, dass die Kinder dieser Welt unter keinen Umständen angetastet werden sollten. Wir sind ein internationales Team. Wir gehören zur Zivilgesellschaft und werden daher nicht wie der Rest der Welt tatenlos zusehen. Deshalb haben wir uns entschieden zu protestieren. Unser Protest hat keinen politischen, geschweige denn rassistischen Charakter. Israelische Bürger sind in diesem Lokal nicht willkommen. Natürlich werden sie wieder willkommen sein, sobald sie sich entscheiden, ihre Augen, Ohren und Herzen zu öffnen."

The English translation reads: "Dear customers, we love all people, no matter where they come from. We believe that the children of this world should not be harmed under any circumstances. We are an international team. We are part of civil society and will therefore not stand idly by like the rest of the world. That is why we have decided to protest. Our protest is not political, let alone racist. Israeli citizens are not welcome in this establishment. Of course, they will be welcome again, as long as they choose to open their eyes, ears, and hearts."

Squitieri's email inbox quickly filled up with hate mail, and the pizzeria software also went down. Pizza Zulu's phone rang all day with crank calls, while others left death threats. The reactions of members of the community ranged from disappointment to outrage, and they claimed that they would never set foot in the restaurant again. After two to three hours, Squitieri removed the sign.

The Botschaft Israel (English: Embassy of Israel) in Berlin issued a swift rebuke on X. "The 1930s are back, this time in Fürth. At the door of a local establishment hung: 'Israeli citizens are not welcome here.' This is neither a protest nor a misunderstanding. This is crystal-clear antisemitism. That's how it started back then: step by step, sign by sign. Police, prosecutors, and courts must take action. Jewish life must be safe and visible in Germany – everywhere, at all times."

Journalist Andreas Thamm, from the Berlin daily newspaper Taz, reports the following conversation with Gaspare Squitieri. "At 50, I'm sitting here in front of you like a little kid who stole an apple. I didn't mean to." Squitieri said that aid wasn't reaching the people in Gaza and he couldn't bear seeing the images of starving children, and that European countries were turning a blind eye. Squitieri said that he wanted to motivate people to take action, to spark a discussion. 

"That was our goal," he said. "I realize we did it completely wrong. It was worded completely stupidly. We completely missed the mark."

Squitieri says he is not concerned with Israel, but that he had to put the word Israeli because the war isn't happening in Morocco. "I tried to do it in the stupidest way possible." Squitieri claims he wanted to "bring Palestinians and Israelis to the table. Look, my plan was simple. I'll move around and cause a bit of chaos. I never expected this huge chaos." Squitieri says he was naive and that the poster was put up inside (as opposed to outside) and had been removed after two or three hours.

Journalist Minh Anh Nguyen from the regional online news portal Nordbayern reports that Squitieri insisted that his sign was not intended to be anti-Semitic and that it did not contain any insults. Journalist Andreas Thamm from Taz claims that Squitieri put out a prepared written statement that states he will contact the representatives of the Jewish community and that he is willing to listen.

Dr. Ludwig Spaenle has been the Commissioner for Jewish Life and Against Anti-Semitism, for Remembrance Work and Historical Heritage since 2018, when the office was established.

Spaenle criticized the actions of Squitieri. "The fact that a restaurant is excluding Israeli citizens and banning them from the premises is intolerable. In doing so, the pizzeria owner is making adults, children and young people from Israel responsible for what the Israeli government decides and implements." Spaenle called for civil society to "react appropriately to the incident."

Julia Tschekalina, chair of the Jewish Community of Fürth, stated, "Such an exclusion is simply shameful and terrible." Tschekalina said the incident was anti-Semitic, and it reminded her of 1933. "It started like this back then too." 

Tschekalina said she would consider pressing charges for incitement to hatred and racially motivated discrimination.

The Jewish Museum of Fürth is 300 feet from Pizza Zulu. Daniela Eisenstein, the director of the Jewish Museum since 2003, said, "I've been thinking about inviting the owner. We offer anti-Semitism workshops here."

Fürth and Nuremberg: Holocaust Background

At the onset of WWII, Fürth had approximately 35,000 residents. The Jewish population of Fürth was about five percent of the total population. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum documents that the Nazis deported 1,784 Jews from Fürth during the Holocaust. This number includes the Jews who committed suicide to avoid deportation.

Fürth is 5 miles to the west of Nuremberg, which was the primary ceremonial and propaganda hub for the Nazi Party from August 1927 until the invasion of Poland in September 1939. Nazi rallies were held in Nuremberg in 1923, 1927, 1929, and then annually starting in 1933 when Hitler rose to power. The 1939 rally was cancelled due to the invasion of Poland. Many of the black-and-white films of Hitler addressing large crowds were filmed in Nuremberg.

Relevant Facts

The United Nations (UN) intentionally underreports the amount of aid entering the Gaza Strip. On August 19, 2025, the UN claimed that 3,553 trucks of aid had entered Gaza since May. However, the Israeli government put out a statement via the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), stating that the number of trucks that entered the Gaza Strip during that time period was 9,200. Aid enters Gaza via three entrances, two in the south and one in the north. The UN ignores the aid entering via the northern entrance. The UN also ignores aid entering Gaza via airdrops or aid that is not coordinated by UN agencies.

Furthermore, the vast majority of the aid that enters Gaza is stolen by the terrorist organization Hamas. According to the United Nations' own reports, Hamas has stolen nearly 90 percent of all the aid that has entered Gaza since the war began. In 2024 alone, Hamas earned 500 million dollars by stealing aid and then reselling it at inflated prices to Gaza residents. In fact, if the world, including President Trump, hadn't kept pushing Israel to keep sending in aid, the IDF would have been able to starve Hamas and most likely would have wrapped up the war within months of October 7, 2023.

In the comments section of my column last Friday, "German Shop Owner Bans Jews From Store," several RedState members asked some great questions. RedState member ibt asked, "If he had written 'Israelis' instead of 'Jews,' would that have been OK?" Emptypockets asked, "What does he think antisemitism is?" And RubyCupCake asked, "How is I CAN'T STAND YOU not antisemitism?"

So what exactly is the definition of antisemitism? And whom exactly was Squitieri prohibiting from his establishment? The issue of antisemitism will be addressed first, followed by the literal writing of Squitieri's sign.

The definition of antisemitism has varied from country to country since the word first appeared in the late 19th century. But in 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) developed a working definition of antisemitism that has since been adopted by 46 countries, including Germany, Israe,l and the United States.

The IHRA's working definition of antisemitism states: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

Immediately after the definition, the IHRA clarifies: "Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic."

Israel has 9.8 million citizens. Of those 9.8 million, 2 million are Arabs and half a million are neither Arab nor Jewish (Druze, Bedouin, or others). Of the 2 million Arab Israeli citizens, 90 percent are Muslim and 10 percent are Christian. Therefore, the word 'Israelis' includes adherents of the three religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Most people are ignorant of the fact that not all Israelis are Jews. This is why the IHRA says: "Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity." To determine if the word 'Israelis' is antisemitic, content, context, perception, and intent must be taken into account. If 'Israelis' is used to mean only Jewish citizens, then that usage may be antisemitic. If "Israelis" is used inclusively to mean all citizens, then that usage is unlikely to be antisemitic. Does Squitieri know that not all Israelis are Jewish?

Assuming Squitieri knew that not all Israelis are Jewish and that he used the word 'Israelis' to refer to the entire population, this opens a different discussion. The literal translation of Squitieri's sign would not prohibit any German Jew living in Fürth from entering his establishment. It also wouldn't prohibit Jews visiting Germany from countries other than Israel from entering his establishment. However, banning all Israelis would likely be unlawful in Germany regardless of whether Squitieri was referring to Jews or all Israelis. The Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG, General Equal Treatment Act) prohibits discrimination based on nationality and provides civil remedies; criminal liability would require additional elements under German criminal law, such as intent to incite hatred.

In the previous event, Reisch's note in his front window banning Jews from his shop in Flensburg, Germany, was almost certainly antisemitic due to the use of the word "Jews," combined with the sentence, "I just can’t stand you." However, in the case of Squitieri's sign in Pizza Zulu, the facts demonstrate that it is a little more nuanced. At best, what Squitieri did was incredibly stupid and idiotic. At worst, it was antisemitic and intentional. And there is a large grey area between those two extremes. \

Now that the facts have been laid out, I look forward to the thoughts and comments from the RedState community.