Hoax Alert: A Brick in Brookline (2025)

According to Philissa Cramer writing in the ‘South African Jewish Report’ there has been yet another so-called ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ in the town of Brookline in Massachusetts.

Let’s see what she has to say: shall we?

She writes that:

‘Police in Brookline, Massachusetts, are investigating after a brick with “Free Palestine” written in red paint was thrown through the window of a kosher grocery store.

The Butcherie is one of the Boston area’s only kosher grocers, selling kosher meat and prepared food from its home in Coolidge Corner, a hub of Jewish commercial activity in the heavily Jewish suburb of Boston.

Police chief Jennifer Paster said a preliminary investigation had showed that at least two people wearing masks approached the store and threw the brick just after midnight on Sunday morning, 15 June. She said her department was investigating the attack as a hate crime.

“This wasn’t simply an act of property damage, and it’s not plainly vandalism,” Paster said. “This was a targeted, hateful message meant to intimidate a Jewish-owned business and our broader Jewish community. Brookline is a place of inclusion, dignity, and respect. Let me be clear: There’s no room for antisemitism, hate, or political violence here in Brookline.”

The incident comes at a time of high anxiety for American Jews following three high-profile violent attacks on Jewish targets carried out by people who said they were acting out of concern for Palestinians.

The Butcherie posted a picture of its broken front window and of the brick on social media. “Let us be clear: this was not a statement of protest, it was an attack on the Jewish community. This was not about policy or politics. It was an act meant to threaten, to isolate, and to target us for who we are,” the store wrote.

“We are disturbed and we are saddened, but we are not shaken. We will not be silenced or intimidated,” the Butcherie continued. “The Jewish people have endured far worse, and have always stood tall, with dignity and unity. We will continue to serve our community proudly and without fear.”’ (1)

Now looking at the facts of the case ‘at least two’ – why do we not know how many people were involved given they know it is ‘more than one’? – people ‘wearing masks’ – which suggests CCTV footage is available but again the lack of specifics is odd – and ‘threw a brick’ through ‘The Butcherie’s’ window with ‘Free Palestine’ written on it on in red paint.

Now being experienced in looking into these claims I immediately used Google Maps to check to see why ‘The Butcherie’ might have been targeted and whether it was an openly jewish/Israeli business.

In the below image we can see the front of ‘The Butcherie’ which confirms it is both a jewish and Israeli business (and has the CCTV it was implied the police had footage from):

So far so good, but then we begin to get into problems because just over the road is an openly jewish bakery called ‘Kupel’s’ but more interesting four doors down from ‘The Butcherie’ is a far more obvious target for ‘anti-Semitic brick throwing’ in support of Palestine called the ‘Israel Book Shop’:

Now this isn’t of itself evidence that this case is a hoax, but it never-the-less seems odd in that you’d target a kosher butcher over an Israeli book shop just down the road for your brick throwing protest, but it is possible. It is also noteworthy that ‘The Butcherie’ has CCTV while the ‘Israel Book Shop’ doesn’t appear to which makes it even more odd.

But there is also something else we need to note here in that in 2018 the jewish community of Brookline claimed that when a metal menorah was stolen from the Temple Emeth congregation it was an ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ but in fact it was a simple case of metal theft. (2)

So, they do have form for falsely claiming normal crimes were ‘hate crimes’.

However perhaps more interesting is that this ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ closely mirrors the ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ hoax in Brooklyn, New York in April 2025 – only two months before this similar incident in Brookline – where a jewish woman named Natasha Cohen faked an ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ by putting a brick with a swastika and ‘Nazi’ similarly scrawled in white paint on a parked Tesla Cybertruck and was only caught because of the security camera footage from the Tesla. (3)

The similarity of these two incidents is obvious enough and the fact that ‘The Butcherie’ was targeted by assailants obviously prepared for its CCTV system who promptly ignored the ‘Israel Book Shop’ down the road suggests this is a hoax because it simply doesn’t fit.

The motivation?

If I were to guess this is motivated by a drop off in sales caused by the widespread cost of living crisis in the United States and the cost of kosher food being extremely high (4) and one way jews have used – both currently and historically – to generate a demand spike in sales, donations and/or sympathy is faking an ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ against the business such as was the case at the BerMax Caffe in Winnipeg, Canada in 2019. (5)

Thus, we can see this is almost certainly yet another ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ hoax!

References

(1) https://www.sajr.co.za/brick-reading-free-palestine-thrown-through-window-of-boston-area-kosher-grocery-store/

(2) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/hoax-confirmed-the-broken-menorah

(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/hoax-alert-the-brooklyn-brick-brouhaha

(4) See for example: https://coastalcourier.com/coastal-living/faith/the-extreme-cost-of-kosher/; https://www.yeshiva.co/ask/60852 and https://www.jta.org/2023/04/24/food/the-high-price-of-kosher-food-takes-a-bite-out-of-these-nyc-teens-budgets

(5) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/hoax-confirmed-weirdness-in-winnipeg