'We don't want you here.' Passaic restaurant goes viral after receiving anti-Muslim letter
Owners of Chocolate House, Hazem Asad and Rashad Alawi, said they received an anonymous letter at their Totowa store earlier this week.
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The owners of a Passaic County restaurant received an anti-Islamic letter in the mail, and their social media post about it is gaining a lot of attention.
Owners of Chocolate House, Hazem Asad and Rashad Alawi, said they received an anonymous letter at their Totowa store earlier this week.
The letter had no return address.
"You could tell it was an uneducated person from the grammar. Just the last line, 'all you Muslims are this and that,' generalizing us," Asad told News 12 about the contents of the letter.
It included insults and profanity, featured a series of questions about the Halal products Chocolate House sells.
"They don't even understand what the term Halal means. It's just that there's no gelatin for the customers that only eat Halal or Kosher," Asad said.
Both owners said this wasn't the first time their business has encountered this type of hate.
"People know that we started our first location in Paterson, which is a very densely high populated Muslim community. They're like, 'go back to Paterson. We don't want you here,'" Asad said. "I just posted it on social media honestly not expecting the feedback and the support from the community."
The two men said they'd had enough of the hate mail.
"It hasn't even been 48 hours I think, and it has around 4 million views. A lot of people are commenting positive things, saying that we stand with you guys, we support you guys. We really appreciate that," Alawi said.
The letter also caught the attention of CAIR NJ, the Council on American Islamic Relations.
"We really need our officials to come forth and condemn this whether it's issuing a statement, whether it's posting a video on social media, whether it's going to the mosque and speaking to the community," said Aya Elamroussi, the communications manager at CAIR NJ. "Right now, the hate against Muslims has been normalized for too long."
Asad and Alawi's message to the author of the letter is simple.
"You can come, I'll give you a hug bro. If you're a lady, I'll say hi to you, I'm not going to hug you. We'll have a cup of coffee together, and I'll educate you," Alawi said.
