A bagel shop backed out of a Jewish food festival over Israel - regret set in

(JTA) - 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 influencer Jessica Seinfeld - prompting him to apologize.

Now he was on a listening tour, trying to repair the harm he knew he had caused as he strove to be a nonpolitical purveyor of Jewish foods in the year 2025, navigating a tightrope so narrow that he sometimes could not see it at all.

"I made the decision to withdraw from the festival. I mistakenly thought that by doing so, I would be avoiding politicizing Isaac's Bagels," Henrion wrote in his public apology for pulling out of the festival. "Instead, what I did was to further politicize Isaac's Bagels and to deeply offend and alienate many people in the diverse Jewish communities of Durham."

He continued, "I am profoundly sorry that I conflated participation in a celebration of Jewish culture with support for any political stance."

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.

But in the case of Isaac's Bagels, something different happened. Rather than leading to just another social media onslaught and another set of hurt feelings, the bagel brouhaha transformed, according to local Jewish leaders, into an exemplar of teshuvah, the Jewish ideal of repentance.

"In the Jewish faith we spend a lot of time thinking about asking for forgiveness," said Jill Madsen, the CEO of Jewish For Good, the host of the food festival, in a statement. "In my opinion Isaac has done that and now it is our job to practice the act of forgiving, build trust, and continue to foster relationships with our broader local community."

The story began on Thursday, after Henrion posted on Instagram that he would be selling bagels at the food festival, in part using a template that Jewish For Good - the name of the local Jewish federation - distributed to all participants. For him, participating felt like a natural choice: Proceeds would go to the Durham Food Pantry, in keeping with the community spirit he took on when moving to the southern city in 2019 from New York City. Henrion, who is not Jewish, previously sold his bagels at the Levin JCC, the home of Jewish For Good, when he was still in the pop-up phase.

Henrion's bagels, hand-rolled and made according to a carefully researched technique that involves a 48-hour rise, were an immediate hit in Durham, an epicenter of foodie culture and home to a thriving, growing Jewish population. With an estimated 11,000 Jews in Durham and adjacent Chapel Hill, the city is home to Conservative and Reform synagogues, an Orthodox prayer service, a new anti-Zionist Jewish congregation, and both a robust Center for Jewish Life and Chabad at Duke University.

The city is dense with cafes, bakeries and microbreweries - but it did not have a standalone artisanal bagel shop. The brick-and-mortar Isaac's Bagels opened in early 2023 with Jewish flare, slinging hamantaschen at Purim, honey cake at Rosh Hashanah and sufganiyot at Hanukkah in addition to bagels six days a week.

Soon after posting about the food festival on Thursday, Henrion began receiving messages from critics online.

"This criticism said that because the JCC is an organization that stands with Israel, that meant that we were aligning ourselves by participating in a local cultural event organized by them," he explained in his apology.

Concerned that he had inadvertently waded into political territory that he wanted to avoid, and frightened that he might have exposed his staff of about 25 to risk, Henrion said he "panicked." He consulted with his team before posting on Friday evening that he was backing out of the festival, writing, "We have heard people's feedback and wanted to share that we will not participate in the Jewish Food Festival on Sunday."

Emphasizing that the store's goal had been to raise money for charity, he added, "Our participation was widely interpreted as taking a company political position, which we did not intend."

The note quickly ricocheted beyond his store's 7,500 followers. Seinfeld, who has two children who graduated from nearby Duke University and one who is currently enrolled, heard from "a bunch of Duke parents who were horrified by it," according to her spokesperson, who said the influencer was too busy to speak.

Seinfeld denounced Henrion's withdrawal in an Instagram story to her 600,000 followers. "Duke Jewish community. Take note of Isaac's bagels political stance," she wrote. "They would rather not partner with a Jewish organization to raise money for the local food pantry cuz they got 'feedback.' They are comfortable selling Jewish foods and lavishing in Jewish culture but they don't support Jews or non-Jews who are food insecure."

By that point, Henrion had already taken down his post. He had realized he'd made what he called "an awful mistake" after getting a wave of critical comments as well as communication from Jewish For Good.

"This decision feels like a huge slap in the face as at no time before yesterday did you reach out to us to even discuss questions people were posing to you," Madsen had written to him, in an email shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "We would have helped you navigate this with your staff or community members."

She added, "Instead, posting this decision on social media has not only open[ed] the flood gates and created platforms for people to rant misinformation and antisemitism sentiments. It also puts us in the headlines, which creates potential threats, as unfortunately we are living in a time where regularly Jewish people and organizations are under attack."

Behind the scenes, Henrion was getting advice from a local Jewish leader, Adam Goldstein, a physician and past president of the Jewish federation. Goldstein had patronized Isaac's Bagels and otherwise didn't know Henrion, but he sensed in Henrion's statement an opportunity for a meaningful connection.

"I read between the lines and I felt that it was important for me as a Jewish communal leader to understand what had happened and thought that ... if there were mistakes that were made, I could be helpful," Goldstein said in an interview.

The situation was unfolding on Shabbat, and it didn't hurt that Goldstein's synagogue had a guest speaker who had taught about Jewish ideas about apologies. Yakir Englander, a philosopher, had taught about Maimonides' theory of teshuvah, or repentance, in which the medieval scholar laid out three requirements: to acknowledge error, to express regret and to resolve to make change. Goldstein had that in mind when he spoke with Henrion and heard that the baker wanted not only to apologize but to act.

"When he let me know he wanted to make an apology, I think he did a great job of not shifting responsibility, of taking ownership," Goldstein said.

Henrion's apology post went up late in the day on Saturday and stretched for nearly 700 words that explained his early thinking and how he had realized he had made a mistake.

"I am deeply sorry for the pain and upset I have caused across the board. I know that I have alienated people and have trust to regain," Henrion wrote. He also committed to donating 10% of his store's proceeds to the food pantry for a week.

The post didn't allow comments, but that didn't stop the online discourse over his about-face. On Reddit, locals analyzed the apology, with many praising it and lamenting the dynamics that caused the incident in the first place. "I've never been to Isaac's but give them a break. People are putting small businesses in an impossible situation," one commenter wrote.

But on the store's Facebook page and in a local Jewish Facebook group, the backlash continued. "I hope your business tanks and you have to close," one out-of-state commenter wrote on an unrelated post on the Facebook page, adding, "Also, your apology is shitty and pathetic - just like you."

Seinfeld, meanwhile, shared a screenshot of the apology and said the store had "come to its senses." She speculated that employees or customers had pressured Henrion to back out of the festival.

"The fact that people around him encouraged him to turn his back on those who first supported him - the JCC - and the very culture that gave rise to his business - is depraved," she wrote. "But in the end, he made the right decision."

By then, the food festival had announced that it was sold out, with no tickets available at the door. An array of local purveyors - including an independent bagel store from Chapel Hill, an artisanal popsicle shop and a popup called Hummus Y'all run by an Israeli-born scientist - were on hand to sell their products. Henrion decided not to try to join them, writing in his apology that he did not want his presence to be "an unnecessary distraction from what should be a joyful day."

But he was in attendance anyway, as Goldstein's guest. He set up a chair in a corner of the courtyard and invited attendees to speak with him. He estimates that between 30 and 40 did.

"I am grateful to everyone who spoke with me," Henrion wrote in a reflection after the event that he shared with JTA. "I know that people were not obliged to do this, and they were entitled to reject my attempts at reconciliation. I was profoundly moved by people's willingness to share personal experiences, help me understand their pain, and allow me to grow as a person."

While Henrion is not Jewish, both of his grandfathers were Jews who fled persecution in mainland Europe for England, where he grew up. One of his grandfathers, Frederic Henri Kay Henrion, was an influential graphic designer who fled the Nazis in 1933 and was subsequently interned - alongside Nazis - because of his German background once World War II began. That family history lingered in the background as Henrion embarked on a professional quest to honor Ashkenazi Jewish cooking, and this week as he found himself accused of anti-Jewish animus.

In an interview, Henrion said he agreed with critics who said dropping out of the festival was bigoted, as much as it distressed him to accept it. "The decision I made conflated participation in a Jewish cultural event with everything to do with political issues, which was antisemitic," he said.

Henrion believes he might have lost customers over the incident. In a heated climate, it's possible that some progressives in Durham may boycott him over his decision not to break ties with Jewish For Good, and for pledging to participate in next year's Jewish Food Festival if he is invited. And, as the Facebook comments suggest, some pro-Israel Jews and others could be unconvinced by his apology.

But he says he isn't thinking about any of that. He's focused on a different lesson.

"While I of course, you know, deeply, deeply regret what I did and the way that everything unfolded, I'm very, very grateful for the way that people have allowed me to find my voice and to learn from this and to find what's right," Henrion said. "And that is a lesson I will take with me forever."