Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy announced on Sunday that he would arrange a trip to Auschwitz for the people who ordered a “F*** the Jews” sign at a Barstool bar in Center City, Philadelphia, in the hopes that they would learn something from the experience.
Portnoy, who is Jewish, initially posted an “emergency press conference” and vowed that he was “coming for throats” over the incident that took place at Barstool Sansom Street, said that he did not want to “ruin a couple 20 year olds lives.”
WATCH:
Emergency Press Conference – I’m sending the people who ordered the “Fuck Jews” signs at my bar to Auschwitz to learn about the Holocaust. Rather than ruin a couple 20 year olds
lives maybe this can be used as a teaching moment pic.twitter.com/sci4hBPBFA
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 4, 2025
“All right, real quick update,” Portnoy began, recalling just how angry he’d been when he first learned about the sign. “You literally could have cooked an egg on my head. that’s how much steam and heat I had coming out of my ears.”
“And the more I thought about it, these are young f***ing morons who did this,” he continued. “They’re drunk. It’s like, do you really want to ruin somebody’s life — and let me be honest, I don’t know what’s going on in the world, well, I do in the Middle Eats obviously, but I’ve been doing Barstool for 20 years. I’ve had more hate, more antisemitism in the last year or year and a half than I’ve ever had doing it.”
Portnoy went on to note just how mainstream antisemitism had become, and argued that even though his initial reaction had been to burn them all, he felt that the best way to put a stop to that was ultimately through education.
“I’m sending these kids to Auschwitz. They’ve agreed to go,” Portnoy said, explaining that he’d spoken with the families of the people involved. “That’s of course the Holocaust concentration camp … We’re going to send these kids to Auschwitz and they’re going to do a tour or the concentration camps in Germany and hopefully learn something, and maybe like their lives aren’t ruined, they think twice … to me, that’s a fair outcome.”
Portnoy explained in his first “emergency press conference” that patrons at the bar had requested the sign to be displayed, prompting his initial angry response — and he said that the two waitresses responsible for going ahead with the request had been fired.
