The restaurants and product lines owned by Chef Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook (CookNSolo) directly support Israel’s genocide of Palestine in multiple ways:

Providing Material and Ideological Support for Genocide

• CookNSolo raised over $100K in October 2023 for United Hatzalah, an organization that provides medical supplies to the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces). 

• CookNSolo hosted numerous free dinners at their restaurants for IOF soldiers before deployment to Gaza.

• Solomonov has worked as a “culinary ambassador” for the state of Israel’s Ministry of Tourism. He was paid by the Israeli government to bring foreign journalists on culinary tours of Israel to encourage favorable coverage. The Israel Tourism Commissioner stated that the purpose of the partnership was to promote culinary tourism to Israel. Solomonov stated that, “It is my life’s work to help people in the United States and around the world to experience the depth and distinct beauty of Israeli cuisine… Israel is a nation, a culture, a people and a cuisine that I believe in deeply.” 

• Solomonov views his promotion of “Israeli” food as a way to promote the state of “Israel”: In 2019 he said, “What we've done in the kitchen [...] has been so much more productive for Israel than had I become a soldier.”

• In 2025 Solomonov and Cook were awarded a “Tree of Life” Lifetime Achievement award by the Jewish National Fund for their fundraising efforts on behalf of the occupation. Solomonov said: “to be able to…raise money for Israel…in this tremendously precarious time is very meaningful.”

• Solomonov also recently partnered with the JNF on a culinary institute located in the Galilee (northern “Israel”), a project designed with the express purpose of increasing settlement and building industry in the North. 

  • This is part of the JNF’s “Go North Campaign” focused on developing the north of “Israel” as a hub for eco tourism, tech start ups and food technology.

Silencing and mistreating workers who support Palestine.

• CookNSolo has fired multiple employees for expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people.

• Employees describe a “militant and impersonal” work culture of “fear and coercion” rife with wage theft, summary firings, misogyny and transphobia. (Source: comments made to us by former employees)

Supporting businesses producing foods in occupied Palestine.

• In addition to carrying a variety of “Israeli” wines, their own proprietary blend, Galia, is produced by the “Israeli” winery Vitkin, which maintains vineyards throughout the occupied territory, including in the “Jerusalem Mountains” and the occupied Syrian Golan. 

• Soom Tahini, which is used in all of their restaurants and in their in-store hummus, is marketed as a Philadelphia business but is produced in “Israel,” where one of the owners of the company lives and oversees manufacturing.

Culinary imperialism

• CookNSolo gets rich off of appropriating indigenous Palestinian foodways and calling it “Israeli cuisine.” Using stolen food to legitimize stolen land and creating an “Israeli national cuisine” are acts of cultural theft, erasure, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Dishes like hummus, falafel, and za’atar belong to indigenous Palestinians, not colonizers.