Restaurateur charged with Nazi sign at pro-Palestinian rally

Customers have turned against Nomad restaurant after one of its owners was charged for displaying a swastika at Sunday’s pro-Palestinian march in Hyde Park.

The Nomad restaurant group’s social media pages are being besieged with hate reviews after the owner was arrested for carrying a sign featuring a Nazi symbol at a pro-Palestine rally.

Punters vowed to boycott the award-winning establishment in Sydney after the owner Alan Yazbek was charged by police who allege he marched through the city carrying an Israeli flag that had swapped the Star of David for a swastika at Sunday’s demonstration.

He was also allegedly seen brandishing a mock Hezbollah green and yellow flag with the words “our boys in green and gold will win”.

Nomad senior staff were called to an urgent 11am meeting on Wednesday to brief staff and management about “Al’s” arrest and how to handle customer inquiries.

Yazbek, 56, who set up the successful establishment more than a decade ago, has been lying low since his arrest on Sunday afternoon.

Al Yazbek at Toko restaurant on Oxford St, Paddington.

On Wednesday, a front of house staff member said Yazbek was “not even taking our calls today”.

Restaurant-goers incensed by Yazbek’s alleged conduct at the rally jammed Nomad’s social media pages with negative reviews, with one customer writing, “Don’t go to this anti-Semitic restaurant”.

“Disgusting,” one said. “I hope you go bust” another wrote.

Yet one customer said it was “sad to see someone attacked for being “anti-genocide”.

Some pledged to boycott the eatery, which was awarded a hat in Good Food’s 2024 awards.

Kathy Parks, 22, and her boyfriend Jimmy Ton, 24, who had eaten at the restaurant while on holiday from Perth, said they would never return.

“I’d have given it a second thought had I known before,” she said.

“The owner is in hospitality, what’s he doing displaying a swastika when it can bring his brand into disrepute?”

“How extremely disappointing to see the owner of Nomad Alan Yazbek displaying a hateful message on an image of an Israeli flag at a protest march. (A photo of him in The Daily Telegraph.),” a regular diner wrote on Facebook.

Yazbek at Sunday’s protest holding the alleged sign. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by others in the photograph. Picture: NewsWire

“I have loved and visited Nomad multiple times over the years. It has been a favourite restaurant of mine.

“Now sadly with … Alan Yazbek having no moral compass nor compassion nor sensitivity for the atrocities of Oct 7 in Israel, 2023, it would be inconceivable for me return to Nomad.”

Yazbek was charged with knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol in public. His bail conditions prohibit him from going within two kilometres of Town Hall,

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry denounced Mr Yazbek’s actions at Sunday’s march as “diabolical”.

“Anti-Israel fanatics have long equated Jews with Nazis as a way of taunting the Jewish community with the symbols of those who nearly exterminated them. To compare the systematic annihilation of a people with a just war in response to the barbarism of October 7 is diabolical,” co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said.

“It is a doubly egregious act, as it erases the true history of the Holocaust and also associates Jews with the highest evil in order to incite hatred against them.

“Inaccurate reporting that the individual is Jewish caused distress in the community and may have led some to conclude that the sign could not be racist in nature.”

NSW Police had warned protesters ahead of the sanctioned event about displaying symbols or flags with links to Hezbollah or photos of the group’s assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Yazbek and wife Rebecca have run the popular Surry Hills restaurant for more than a decade.

Their success in Sydney has seen them open a branch in Melbourne and other French-themed establishment called Reine.

Yazbek is set to face Downing Centre Local Court on October 24.

He has been approached for comment.

Originally published as Restaurateur charged with Nazi sign at pro-Palestinian rally