Pink Peacock

Pink Peacock (Yiddish:, ) was a café and infoshop in the Govanhill area of Glasgow. Described by its founders as "anti-Zionist" and "the only queer Yiddish anarchist vegan pay-what-you-can café in the world", it opened physically in 2021, after being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and announced its closure in June 2023.

Establishment


Pink Peacock was founded by Morgan Holleb and Joe Isaac, both active participants in Irn-Ju, a Jewish anarchist collective in Scotland. The founders formed plans to open a queer and Yiddish café in 2019. They chose the name Pink Peacock, or די ראָזעווע פּאַווע in Yiddish, after the golden peacock that is a traditional Yiddish symbol. They were motivated by the lack of queer and Jewish spaces in Govanhill, and the lack of Yiddish spaces in Scotland; the café was the country's first physical Yiddish-focused space to open in decades.

In July 2020, Pink Peacock campaigned to crowdfund £10,000 to cover the costs of running the café for three months. They successfully raised a total of £15,885 by the end of the campaign in August 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the planned opening of the café. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Isaac and Holleb distributed packages of food in Govanhill and organized various queer and Jewish online events.

Operation


Pink Peacock operated on a pay-what-you-can model, telling customers the break-even price but allowing them to pay any amount. The café was alcohol-free and vegan, and had a community fridge outside the café stocked with food. In addition to food, they sold what Jewish Currents described in 2021 as "Jewish lefty merch". The café was run as a cooperative by workers and community members.

Use of Yiddish
Pink Peacock maintained a Yiddish version of its website, and used the language on Twitter, unlike many other Yiddish-focused organizations. In a 2020 article for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Holleb explained that "Yiddish is a way of connecting with a Jewish language that isn’t modern Hebrew. There isn’t Yiddish nationhood. It is a diasporic language."

Anti-police policy and tote bags
In June 2021, Pink Peacock was the subject of reporting in the tabloid The Scottish Sun, which criticised their policy of "no cops, no terfs". Subsequently, the café's storefront was vandalised when a man painted over it. The cafe had also experienced vandalism a month prior to these events, in May 2021 when a window had been smashed in an incident which also saw windows broken in adjacent branches of Farmfoods and Semichem. Additionally, the coverage led to a complaint about the café displaying in its window a pink tote bag with the words "fuck the police" in English and Yiddish, which in turn led Police Scotland to visit Holleb and Isaac's home. Holleb was subsequently charged with breach of the peace, and Glasgow police seized one of the tote bags from Pink Peacock as evidence. After the seizure, which was publicized in local media and on Pink Peacock's Twitter account, the café sold out of the bags.

Handcuff key sales
On 30 September, the café launched the sale of universal handcuff keys. They were met with criticism on line as this coincided with the sentencing of a police officer convicted of the murder of Sarah Everard after falsely arresting her and restraining her in handcuffs. The café later issued a statement claiming the keys had been promoted with the upcoming 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference protests in mind and not the Sarah Everard case and said the timing was insensitive.

Book burning
In May 2023, for the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer, Pink Peacock members burned a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the pavement outside the cafe, to protest what they believed to be transphobia and antisemitism from author J. K. Rowling. A spokesperson denied that the act was similar to Nazi book burnings, due to differences in power between a government and a café.

Closing
Pink Peacock closed on 14 June 2023, with the organisation citing a number of reasons including burnout, backlash from TERFs, antisemitism from the left and right, and racism within the collective toward minority members. One volunteer said that the café had faced rumours from other left-wing groups that the members were secretly wealthy American Jews exploiting workers.