Family, friends and acquaintances have said goodbye to Sami Bar-on. Bar-on was the owner of the Jewish restaurant HaCarmel on the Amstelveenseweg for 21 years. He died earlier this month at the age of 67 while on vacation in Israel.
Dozens of people visited the small, kosher restaurant in Zuid this afternoon. Memorial candles are lit, coffee is served and falafel sandwiches are handed out. “Sami had a big heart,” says a family friend. “He loved people. You didn’t go to HaCarmel, you went to Sami.”
Another visitor can’t believe that Sami is gone. “Everyone is in shock. Especially friends and family, of course. It’s very bad. But this is a beautiful day.”
Restaurant HaCarmel has been the target of vandalism and anti-Semitic threats for years. Even when his son Daniel announced the memorial service on social media last Tuesday, the hate comments poured in. “About my father, about the restaurant. From people who didn’t even know my father. That is of course very bad.”
But Sami Bar-on was never intimidated or chased away. The restaurant was his child, Daniel says. “And we will certainly continue the restaurant. The times that something happened here, the shards were still on the floor and my father was already ready to open. That is why we have chosen to continue.”