Dave Portnoy Gets Mixed Reviews for Handling of Antisemitic Incident in His Bar
“I’m gonna f—ing make it my life f—ing mission to ruin these people. Like, I’m coming to your throat. I’m never ending.”
Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports reacted angrily over the weekend when someone in his Philadelphia bar was seen holding up a sign that read “F**k the Jews.”
Portnoy published a video rant on Twitter/X explaining that he was aggressively trying to find out who was responsible and that this would not be tolerated in his organization.
The Hill reported:
Portnoy says antisemitic message found in Barstool bar: ‘I’ve been shaking’
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy said on Sunday he was “shaking” after discovering an antisemitic sign on display at his bar in Philadelphia this weekend and vowed to hold the individuals involved accountable.
In an expletive-filled video that he called an “emergency press conference,” Portnoy, who is Jewish, addressed reports that individuals at Barstool Sanson Street held a sign that read, “F— the Jews.”
“I’ve been shaking. I’ve been so f—ing mad for the last two hours,” Portnoy said in the video Sunday, adding, “I’m gonna f—ing make it my life f—ing mission to ruin these people. Like, I’m coming to your throat. I’m never ending.”
“For the last two hours, I have been on the trail. Trust me, I’ve been on the trail. You think I’m gonna put up with this sh– at my bar?” Portnoy added.
You can watch the video below, but be aware that it’s full of curse words:
Emergency Press Conference – There was a “Fuck the Jews” sign at our Philly bar last night. I am shaking I’m so mad pic.twitter.com/DRlQc9woiA
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 4, 2025
While Portnoy’s outrage was justified, it’s what he did next that is getting mixed reviews, mainly because of the way he decided to punish the wrongdoers.
The New York Post reported:
Dave Portnoy decides punishment for those involved in anti-Semitic ‘f—k the Jews’ sign at Barstool Sports bar
Dave Portnoy said he was trying to make this a learning experience rather than “f–king burn” the people who ordered the disgusting sign that had an anti-Semitic message on it at one of Barstool’s bars in Philadelphia.
Portnoy had addressed the issue in an angry video posted to social media, but just hours later, the Barstool Sports founder arrived at a decision on what should happen to the two people involved.
He planned to send them to tour the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland in effort to educate them rather then ruin their lives.
“The more I thought about it, it’s like, these are young f–kin morons who did this,” Portnoy said. “They’re drunk. Do you really want to ruin somebody’s life?’
He talks about that in this video:
Emergency Press Conference – I’m sending the people who ordered the “Fuck Jews” signs at my bar to Auschwitz to learn about the Holocaust. Rather than ruin a couple 20 year olds
lives maybe this can be used as a teaching moment pic.twitter.com/sci4hBPBFA— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 4, 2025
In the tweet below, the writer says:
It is an irrational use of time and resources to try to re-educate antisemites when we are outnumbered and they’re trying to push us off a cliff. It is time to push back. It is time to hurt – not heal the antisemite. I don’t need antisemites to like me. But if they step out of line I want them to face consequences. They – and others – need to know that we slap back. They don’t need to learn what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust. They need to learn what happened to the Nazis.
.@stoolpresidente Dave won’t like hearing this but I believe this response is illustrative of his own internalised antisemitism. It is part of a coping mechanism in which some Jews fawn to an antisemitic world in the hope that they will be accepted. It is the hope that if we act… https://t.co/V2QYTthoXH
— leekern (@leekern13) May 5, 2025
Professor Jacobson responded:
“They don’t need to learn what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust. They need to learn what happened to the Nazis.” And to Hamas and Hezbollah, and soon to the Mullahs. https://t.co/dtpFjauxIx
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) May 5, 2025
Other Twitter/X users wrote:
Part of Portnoy’s broad appeal, what made him more of just some guy with a sports website, is that he is an original thinker who doesn’t blindly accept common wisdom.
Sadly, when it comes to antisemitism doing the most tired and cliched thing. It doesn’t work.
We have decades… https://t.co/mqvna0gZya
— Lahav Harkov 🎗️ (@LahavHarkov) May 5, 2025
Countless Jews have replied to Dave Portnoy that sending the two main antisemitic perpetrators on a fully-paid trip Auschwitz won’t work because education fails to counter antisemitism.
I agree and have said this for many years. What’s interesting is that now this view is…
— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) May 5, 2025
Portnoy later published a third video in which he talks about giving an interview to a journalist who tried to ambush him about the ‘culture’ of Barstool Sports and uses quotes from an academic journal to suggest that the entire affair is somehow his fault. To his credit, Portnoy reminds her of what we have been witnessing on college campuses for almost two years now.
Again, lots of four-letter words here. Just a heads-up:
So @6abc begged me to do an interview about the incident at our bar. Since it was local I agreed. Then the reporter tried to say Barstool and I and white men were responsible for the incident. Austin started recording once it got contentious pic.twitter.com/ug8CX83HHp
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 5, 2025
Of course, he is absolutely right about what’s happening on college campuses.
Featured image via Twitter video.
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Comments
Cue a slick, soulful sixties groove laid down by Marvin Gaye….
I think he has now canceled the “trips” for at least one of the individuals.
this response is illustrative of his own internalised antisemitism
Fer cryin’ out loud. This is Progressive Marxist Freudian bullcarp.
To all the people saying “you can’t educate them,” what do you propose? Should we just off anyone who expresses stupid ideas so we don’t have to put up with them?
Because these folks are not criminals. What they did was actually free speech. Oh sure, it was an a-hole expression, but it was free speech. The only real responses he has are to “cancel” these folks (which won’t have as much of an impact as many think) or ban them from his establishments.
Or, he can actually engage them and see if they’re worth putting some effort into and making them better people. That approach is more in line with the Talmud, I think.
His business doesn’t have to ‘allow’ free speech on its premises. That is a requirement for government.
The point is that there is no criminal act here.
Possibly disorderly conduct, harassment or trespassing…depends on the patron code of conduct. Since it’s a bar, it likely has one.
But all of those things had to be asserted during the time of the action. And none were (unless they were kicked out). So, there really aren’t any criminal charges.
But, it is entirely speech, so the only recourse he has is to boot/ban them, or to “cancel” them.
I guarantee that any bar or employee who walked around the bar with a sign saying F**** the N****rs would find itself charged with violating laws against discrimination in public accommodations.
The employee wasn’t doing this. The employee was disciplined for allowing it to happen. The people he was going to send to see Auschwitz were patrons.
The offenders are not employees. Beyond that I have no comment due to my own ignorance concerning the law in this area, but I doubt the veracity of your claim.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Watch the culture of free speech die.
It’s his business and it seems to be a bad business practice to allow this–since it’s a private business, the First Amendment doesn’t apply since the government isn’t involved. I applaud him for trying to think outside the box, but you simply can’t counter years of indoctrination at school and university–and now one of the weasels has backed out because his school suspended him.
I’d fire them and throw them to the wolves since it doesn’t appear trying to reason with them or treat them civilly has any effect whatsoever.
It was not the employee(s) that he was going to send. The employee(s) were disciplined.
The people with the sign were patrons.
And if you’re not even going to try and change hearts and minds, then you’ve already lost the fight.
What is wrong with all of you?
The First Amendment states that Free Speech is so important and intrinsic that the government is not allowed to stop it but you all seem to think that this means that YOU can.
No
The whole point is that it’s free, that it’s not subject to regulation.
Letting speech be regulated in bits is what’s killing this country –and the left laughs as we place their chains upon our necks for them.
Nothing’s wrong with me. A private party or organization can set rules for employees and patrons on their own property — if those people do’t agree, they are free not to enter. The Bill of Rights constrains governments, not people. Governments can’t shut Catholics out of their town halls, but Mormons can shut them out of their temples. Governments can’t shut boys out of their schools, but private colleges can. In rational states like Arizona, governments can’t even shut armed citizens out of public buildings, but businesses (most often restaurants) can. And back in the days before freedom of associated was gutted, government could not refuse to serve people of all races, but commercial businesses could — exactly the opposite of the illegitimate rules in force today.
If you don’t agree with this, be careful what you wish for… erotic dance (stripping) was officially ruled to be free speech back in the ’60s.
The Talmud discusses combining discipline & love in connection with disciplining one’s talmid (Torah student) or child. I’m not aware of any similar discussion regarding Jew-haters.
They do not have to be asserted at the time of the action…only if you called the police on them.
It is his business and his employees so he can choose what form of corrective action/discipline is applied. Personally I would have simply fired them as an object lesson and been done with it. I am not at all convinced these people can be brought away from hatred and prejudice. Once someone goes down that path of creating an ‘other’ to attack and blame based not on individual actions but on religion, culture, ethnicity, race or sex then a brief educational experience probably won’t alter their worldview.
Chief, I think you’re getting a couple of actions mixed up (not hard to do since this has been very fluid). I think Portnoy did fire (though I’m not sure if he also reversed that decision) a couple of employees that were working the table where the sign was present and didn’t say anything about it. The trips were not for the employees but the kids who brought in the sign.
That makes more sense. Thanks.
Isn’t Portnoy Jewish himself? I really don’t understand the hate he’s getting here (not a natural Portnoy defender because I’m not a fan of the explosion and now ubiquity of gambling, particularly sports gambling).
I follow and like Max Abrams. But, I think he’s wrong about education failing to counter antisemitism. One reason there’s so little antisemitism in America (in non-immigrant populations) relative to Europe and other parts of the world is because in the 2nd half of the 20th century, WWII was reasonably well studied in our secondary public schools and US pop culture wasn’t afraid to tell the story of the Holocaust. That has changed quite a bit in the last two-decades. WWII isn’t really taught at all and far too many kids < 18 haven't even heard of the Holocaust, unbelievably. And of course, collegiate academia is now a factory of antisemitic hate. So, here we are. Education is the answer, which is why it's so critical we wrestle control of it back from the progressives.
I’ll grant it’s a conundrum.
I’m not sure who the “what happened to the Nazis” quote comes from but little of what happened to the Nazis had anything to do with their ‘Final Solution’ IMO. Nobody went to war in 1939 to protect European Jews from Hitler. I’m not even sure how directly the Holocaust factored into the Allied demand for German’s unconditional surrender at the end of the war, without which there probably wouldn’t have been the same level of anti-Nazi efforts (which actually turned out to be pretty meager, for practical reasons, given the level of general German participation in the Holocaust).
Kids pretty quickly figure out what pushes people’s buttons and looks ‘edgey’ so I have to wonder how much these two were just parrotting an act that looked trendy without really being committed antisemites. Hopefully some negative attention will convince them and at least a few others that this isn’t quite as cool as certain groups make it out to be.
The broader problem is that we have a significant group of people in the US committed to policies fostering racial, religious, and sexual division for the purposes of advancing their own power, and they are willing to grab at any stick with which to strike at those they class as their enemies.
It isn’t just the post-WWII economic system that is collapsing but also the widely shared, at least among Western democracies, opposition to using racial and religious division to advance political goals.
You can put that squarely on the shoulders of the left. They adopted the politics of identity, and now many others will adopt it as well as a defense mechanism.
Behead those that insult Judaism
I think it is a waste of time and money to do this myself, but “internalized antisemitism” as posted by that leekern fellow? Give me a break. That is the language of retards.
Ban them from your establishments and move on.
Well, Dave Portnoy is a big Trump supporter, so he’s got that going for him.
Yes, people who support Trump also generally don’t support racial hatred.
Yes, supporting the strongest advocate and friend of Israel the Presidency has ever seen is, what, just a way to fly your TDS? What does Trump have to do with it.
What do you have going for you? I’ve yet to find anything.
Iowa’s worst lawyer checking in for his daily soup allotment.
What’s Trump paying you for all that space he rents in that empty noggin of yours?
Probably nothing, I’d imagine, given your negotiation skills are right up there with your complete lack of troll-fu.
🎵 Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump /
🎵 Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump /
🎵 Lovely Trummmmmmp, wonderful Trump….
“Shut up, bloody Vikings!”
What does your President for the next 1,354 days have to do with anything in this post?
I tend to disagree as an educator myself , I do believe education battles a lot of hatred as it is based on ignorance, lack of exposure to others who think differently and communication. I’ve met many Muslims over the years who never met a Jew and were terrified of them as they had been taught that we are sub human. I don’t know that a trip to auschwitz is the place to start on educating people ; that just perpetuates the myth that Jewish history begins and ends with the holocaust. But I’d say they could stand to do community service in Israel ; stick them on a kibbutz and have them work for a living surrounded by Jews , Muslims and Christians and learn to talk to people. Once you live and work with people it’s awfully hard to hate them. While there they can visit the Nova site and yad vashem.
I’m gathering some people think the cure is not a trip to Auschwitz, but a trip to Nuremberg.
He’s also right about “journalists” who think their trade makes them special. Reporting is a trade just like carpentry or sanitizing telephones, and has no more privileges.
I will say one thing about visiting a former concentration camp: if you are not inured to evil, with a dead conscience, you cannot help but feel what the place was. And you don’t even have to think in terms of Jews vs NAZIs. You simply have to stand where the ovens were and realize that in this spot, one group of men put another group of men into the furnace simply because they were declared not human enough.
If he wants to spend his money that way, then I give him kudos for trying to actually change hearts and minds. No matter how cynical I might be about the results.
Not for against Portnoy as I’m not a sports fan but I do like his pizza ranking videos. Unless he had a policy in place to not allow those signs in his bar I’d probably not fire the employees but they should have used common sense realizing those dimwits showed up there with those signs specifically because he is Jewish and been thrown out. Sending them to Auschwitz to try and learn something which probably won’t work, ok it’s his money so worth a shot I guess. As for the way he handled that chic reporter, more please.
If I were running a hospitality business, it wouldn’t occur to me that my employees would need to be told not to walk around my place of business displaying a sign that any given ethnic or religious group was unwelcome on premises, just as I wouldn’t expect to have to tell them not to adulterate the food & drink with noxious substances. What does it say that they thought this was ok? Never mind simple decency- did it occur to them that this could cost the owner business? Or even his liquor license?
The employee was not the one displaying the sign.
We don’t know if the employees thought that was ok or were just stunned someone would do it and didn’t know how to react. They should have immediately thrown the guys out. I wasn’t there and don’t know any of the people involved so can’t make a call on that and neither can you. It does seem obvious, though.
portannoys complaint turns into free trip for racists
If he’s going to send them on a trip, send them to Yemen.
I’ve followed this story and I’m somewhat torn about what would be the best thing to do, The problem is I lack essential information. What were the punk’s motivations? Where did the sign come from? How old are they and what exposure to Jews did they have in the past? Who else was with them?
Sometimes I get the impression that such incidents occurs because the perps and young, ignorant. and dumb and don;t know better. If this is the case here than education should be attempted. A trip to Poland is a bit much. A trip to the Holocaust museum should be sufficient.
However, if the punks knew better and carried out their stunt anyways then by all means destroy their lives if you can, Take no prisoners.
lefty
this is 2 tickets to paradise
a lefty will loveeee to see that j ews were slaughtered
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