In the company of family, friends and the community, Robyn Sue Fisher and Sen. Scott Wiener cut the red ribbon outside Smitten on Tuesday afternoon, almost one month after the Jewish-owned ice creamery was vandalized and tagged with pro-Palestinian graffiti.
“I hope that us reopening this store is a symbol of us coming together and a demonstration of the love and the strength of love in our community,” Fisher said. “I couldn’t have done it without you guys.”
Some 30 people gathered outside Smitten on Valencia Street near 20th Street to support Fisher and the store’s reopening — and get a scoop of ice cream.
Fisher created a new flavor — “I choose love” — for the occasion, a reddish-pink blend of strawberry, blueberry and raspberry, with heart-shaped sprinkles on top.
“It’s a little cheesy, but it’s delicious,” said Fisher.
The store was vandalized early on the morning of Oct. 25. Security footage, Fisher says, shows two men who were responsible for graffiti and broken windows that kept the ice cream shop closed for nearly a month. They wrote “Free Palestien” [sic] and “Out the Mission” on a window. They may have written more, Fisher says, but it’s hard to know exactly what it was: For whatever reason, the men saw fit to graffiti the shop’s main windows, then smash them.
Oct. 25 was a difficult day for Fisher. She had her ringer off, and slept through a barrage of early morning text messages. But her colleagues went to the store and spoke with police, whom Fisher said are investigating the graffiti and vandalism as an anti-Jewish hate crime. She says she has received no recent updates on the status of the investigation.
“I was shocked. And then fear. And then some anger. Then just sadness and sorrow. Despair — it was heavy,” said Fisher.
Fisher chose Nov. 21 as the day to re-open for a number of reasons. First, it was time to get her 15 on-site employees back to work. She wanted to use the Thanksgiving holiday to thank the community that rallied behind her. And she also wanted to take advantage of dry weather while she could.
Friends of Fisher’s started a GoFundMe campaign after the incident last month, which brought in more than $100,000.
While Fisher stressed that she did not start it, she does appreciate it. The money went to pay her 15 staffers during a month out of work, upgrade lighting and security measures at the store, and the rest, she says, will go to the nascent Courage Museum. Slated to open in 2025, the museum, which will be located at the Presidio, aims to teach empathy and nonviolence and work with San Francisco young people.
“The silver lining of this is that I felt so alone and targeted. And this invisible web that emerged from our community made me feel not alone anymore,” said Fisher.
Welcome back Smitten!
The vandals do NOT speak for the neighborhood. We are so sorry that happened and so glad you’re back.
I’m glad Smitten is back.
The point of any protest is lost, once someone starts destroying things. They need to be kept out of legitimate protests.
The whole point is to get an idea across in a way that those unaware might want to listen.
Much of the media are partly to blame for not bringing in the longer historical context to explain what has been going on for the many decades before, and how things have come to this point, and what have each countries contributed. It’s almost never simple as one side is bad the other side isn’t, in fact there are more than 2 sides, each country’s political powers with their own agendas involved, and their citizens often without much say in what happens (as is the case right here, we protest to stop wars, but we rarely succeed, what we do succeed in, is to show the world that we don’t agree with the harmful policies.)
Once enough people understand that the government’s actions aren’t the same as they will of the masses, we’ll be one step closer to ending the world’s harm.
Where’s my reply to joe on November 22? Censuring me?
Yeah, genius. You’re “censured.”
I don’t owe a back-and-forth to every fulminating keyboard warrior. Go outside and play.
JE
Sure thing wanna be “reporter” playing in the little bitty world of hyper local news. Feel better now?
Btw my reply was valid…so a few pro Palestinians expressed regret at the smitten incident, whoopee.
You/this web site should be able to handle some disagreements from the usual left/progressive political protocol, which tends to be knee jerk anti Israel. And this trend has gotten a lot worse with an overload of DEI, obsession with oppressor/oppressed colonialist vs brown people, and a warped woke agenda in general.
But I’m sure you won’t publish this.
Dear sir or madam —
The problem here isn’t “disagreements,” it’s obnoxious blowhards being vindictive jerks and making the comments section into a toxic pit.
You can deride the “little bitty world of hyper local news” all you want, but you’re the one making incessant, semi-grammatical anonymous comments on our site.
JE
And by the way both words can work in my statement regarding censure/censor. So who’s the one being petty here?
My criticisms of pro Palestinian supporters is not vindictive (but sometimes sarcastic and ironic to suit the mood.) Overall I have called out numerous biased and sometimes racist attitudes that are pervasive and lazily accepted among our local protest community. Perhaps it makes some people uncomfortable to realize that some of their comfy-default-liberal-biases are problematic when it comes to a neat yet simpleton perspective on Israel Palestine, including Jewish liberals.
When it comes to seeing local support for Smitten from the “pro palestinian” side it’s unsurprising crickets…crickets.
Mind you, this apathy is indicative of national and international organizations too. Where is the me too movement when it comes to speaking out against the brutal (and video taped) rape and murder of Israeli women by hamas on October 7? Or the red cross when it comes to demanding to visit a priori the civilian hostages hamas brutally took? These organizations should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. Apathy is acceptance and silence is complicity. So many well known and (formerly) respected liberal/progressive movements are failing big time here. Their treatment of Israel and Jews in general is a huge litmus test fail. Its fucking revolting.
Sir or madam —
Palestinian Americans *did* in fact reach out to Fisher and *did* condemn this action.
JE
Why are you so full of hate? I pity you.