(The Center Square) – The targeted boycott Sunday of Jewish-owned businesses in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square drew bipartisan condemnation from area lawmakers as hundreds of residents gathered to counterprotest.

The highly publicized event gained traction across multiple media outlets when Philly Bike On Your Left, a cycling group that posts on Instagram and routinely organizes protests against Israeli action in Gaza and federal immigration enforcement in the city, encouraged others to join the ride.

Philadelphia police estimated 500 in Rittenhouse Square. Some of that total figure were in opposition to the protests.

The plan, according to their statement, was to boycott Jewish-owned businesses in Rittenhouse Square they say express support for Israeli military action in Palestine following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-driven attack on its citizens as they slept in their beds.

Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization, has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007. The Palestinian Ministry of Health says 75,000 civilians have died during Israel’s retaliatory military action.

Counter-protestors who flooded the area Sunday to push back against the cyclists, backed by statements from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike called the boycott “antisemitic and shameful” and disconnected from the war.

The timing – between the anniversary of the Hamas attack and the Nazis' “Night of Broken Glass,” or Kristallnacht, that targeted Jews across Europe in 1938 – further inflamed tensions in the city.

In the group’s official statement, it called such criticisms “disingenuous,” pointing instead to scheduling limitations.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, was among those who referenced the 88-year-old event, calling it “blatant antisemitic targeting.”

“In the midst of blatant antisemitic targeting of Jewish-owned restaurants on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the City of Brotherly Love showed up to support our neighborhood businesses and prove once again that hate has no place in our commonwealth,” he said on X.

Shapiro himself was the target of an attempted murder plot after a man firebombed his Harrisburg mansion on the first night of Passover in 2025. Although authorities opted against charging the incident as a hate crime, the man convicted for the attack expressed sentiments against the war in Gaza, though he later denied this in a letter to The Associated Press.

State Treasurer Stacy Garrity, the Republican who lost to Shapiro in Tuesday’s general election, joined him in denouncing the boycott as “disgraceful” and “disturbing.”

“No business owner, employee, or member of our Jewish community should ever have to live in fear or feel unwelcome in their own community,” she said.

It’s not the first time Garrity has expressed support for the war in Gaza. Just weeks after the Hamas attack, the state said it invested $20 million into Israel bonds, increasing the commonwealth’s total ownership to $56 million at that time.

Advocacy groups have long said Israel bonds support the country’s military and political special interests, particularly within the U.S. government. Palestine supporters frame the nation’s foreign investments as integral to what it considers a genocide in the region perpetrated by a “Zionist government.”

Rep. Amen Brown, who represents a state House district in the city, said “holding a rally in Rittenhouse Square that glorifies that massacre as ‘resistance’ is unacceptable.”

His massacre reference is to Oct. 7, 2023.

“The murder of civilians is not resistance and it should never be celebrated,” he said.

State Sen. Joe Picozzi, representing a district in northeast Philadelphia and claiming Jewish descent, joined others in calling the boycott “disgraceful.”

“The right to peacefully protest is a fundamental part of who we are as Americans,” he said in a statement. “Citizens have every right to disagree with the Israeli government, but targeting Jewish business owners here at home undermines American values.

“Political disagreements should never be used as an excuse for attempting to intimidate Americans on the basis of their faith.”

According to a 2019 population study of the greater Philadelphia area, the region is estimated to have 351,200 Jewish residents.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker directed city law enforcement to maintain peace and order, while condemning the protest’s scope.

“Everyone has the right to peacefully protest and express their political views,” she said. “But singling out businesses because their owners are Jewish is unacceptable and has no place in our city.”