About five years ago, Drucker posted a post about Alor Azaria and his mother. Hetzel’s response was not long in coming, and in his own post he called on his hundreds of thousands of followers to boycott her cooking business. She sued him for defamation and won, but the shadow did not give up and appealed. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal, and Hatel must pay Drucker NIS 38,000
Published on: 2.9.22 08:19
Noa Drucker, a chef from Haifa who worked in the kitchens of the most prestigious restaurants in the city and owns a private business for cooking at the client’s home, defeated Yoav Eliasi, known by the nickname Hatel, in the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The story began about five years ago, when Drucker published on her Facebook page a post condemning Elor Azaria and his mother, with very harsh expressions against them. Hetzel responded and even called on hundreds of thousands of his followers for a consumer boycott of Drucker’s business: “Go to Noa Drucker’s page and we will show you some heartfelt response and some lone star, so that they know what a good soul is behind the food she sells.”
After the publication of the post, a lively and unusual movement of surfers began on Drucker’s business Facebook page. In the meantime, many surfers left harsh and blunt reviews of her food business. Many pretended to be her customers even though they had never eaten her food, some claimed they received bad service, others complained of upset stomachs, and there were also those who rated the business the lowest – one star out of five stars. Due to the volume of responses and their style, Drucker was forced to close her business page.
Drucker filed a defamation lawsuit against Hetzel and some of the commenters in his post at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court through attorneys Guy Ofir and Roi Ben David. In his testimony, Hetzel said that there was no evidence of defamation, that he only published a post and that everyone is responsible for themselves, disclaimed all responsibility and claimed Because he didn’t send anyone to harm Drucker’s business and because there is no such thing as “the lions of the shadow”.
The Magistrate’s Court dismissed the claim, but Drucker did not give up and filed an appeal with the District Court, which overturned the magistrate’s decision, ordered Hatel to compensate Drucker with NIS 38,000 and wrote: “There is a causal connection between the ‘persuasive post’ and the reviews.” By the way, the Magistrate’s Court accepted the claim against the other ten advertisers and ordered nine of them to compensate Drucker with NIS 53,000, each according to their share and according to the severity of their actions. The peace ruled that none of the advertisers consumed Drucker’s products and that their publications were made solely as a response to her publication on the Azaria affair, and therefore it is not a legitimate consumer review.
Hatel filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, and yesterday, as mentioned, Judge Yehiel Kosher rejected the appeal request. Hetzel claimed, among other things, that the district in fact violated his freedom of speech, but the supreme court accepted the position of Drucker’s lawyers, according to which “the wrongful solicitation carried out by the appellant does not pertain to freedom of speech in the Azaria case, but to his desire to retaliate against Drucker for an opinion she voiced in the same matter. The desire to retaliate against who who voiced an opinion finds it difficult to fit the arguments regarding concern for freedom of expression.” Hatel was also ordered to pay court costs of NIS 7,500.
Drucker, how did it all start?
“This is an affair that started five years ago, when I was just in the throes of breaking up with my husband. Those were the days when I was a walking ball of nerves, I was angry at the most talked about soldier in Israel who decided to take the law into his own hands, and I expressed myself like… it’s better not to say like what, but I stand by my opinions In genius”.
You paid a high price for voicing your opinion.
“The price was too high by all accounts, except for those who didn’t think like that and decided to hurt me personally, threaten my children, spread pictures of my family with a swastika, call for our killing and wish cancer for all my generations and those who have yet to come. But beyond the level of vulnerability Personally, they called for the confiscation of my trade, my source of livelihood. They spread hateful lies about my business, soldiers claimed that they did not receive service and that the food was moldy or spoiled. They accused me of an upset stomach and even brought proof from a doctor. They just forgot to mention that I never sold food but came to homes to cook, And so it was very easy for me to prove my innocence.”
Are you sorry for your post?
“I regret my statement. If I had understood the Zionist sensitivity surrounding the story, I might have chosen to express myself differently. But I live in a different life zone, unbridled and impulsive. I was wrong in the timing, I was wrong in the wording, but I was not wrong in my opinions, and I still think that we do not have No right to take a life, unless we received an explicit instruction and we are in danger of life of course.”
In the post you wrote yesterday on Facebook, you chose to quote from the song “Tikva” by Subliminal.
“That’s right, and it goes like this: ‘Let’s go on, life is ahead of us, it’s not too late because tomorrow is a new day. The dream will die if we lose hope, so reach out for love.’ I came to the end with my hand on top. Justice prevailed. The road there was not easy, there were difficult moments of crisis, but the sharks who were behind me from the beginning of the road – my lawyers – believed in me and my justice.”