Bulwark Takes - Alan Dershowitz Melts Down Over...Pierogies? (w/ Max Tani)

Episode Date: August 9, 2025

Alan Dershowitz tried again — and failed again! — to get served at a Martha’s Vineyard pierogi stand. Sam Stein and Semafor's Max Tani take on the bizarre farmers’ market showdown and why it's blowing up online.

Hey, guys, it's Sam Stein. I'm here with Max Tani of Semaphore. We are here to discuss parochies. This is an important topic. This is an important topic. It's Al Dershowitz and Perugis in a confrontation at a farmer's market with a parogi stand. We're like two days late to it, but I saw Max kind of tweet and then erase a tweet about it because he thought it was too dumb to deal with. And so I subsequently convinced Max to come on YouTube to discuss it.

I figured, you know, a tweet that's too dumb for me to share with my 50-something thousand followers on Twitter should actually be shared with the bulwarks millions of subscribers on YouTube. And this is important because there are a few more respected experts on the topic of Martha's Vineyard Culinary Scene, Alan Dershowitz and Perugis in general and Max, who is a huge pierogi guy, right? I do love parogies. Well, Sam, what do you eat your pierogies with? Do you have them with applesauce? Do you eat them with sour cream?

How are you eating? You got to go a little combo. It's almost like a lot of combo. You got a little bit of dollop on each and you kind of get it into one bite. You get those flavors. Do you like them fried or do you like them steamed? You know the answer is fried, but it should be steamed. It's really tough.

It's really tough because I like them. I also feel this. I mean, who doesn't like a good fried parogi? I mean, the other thing about this is the parogi, I mean, every culture has a dumpling, right? This, but this is like the sort of like, I think the most satisfying of dumplings because it's just, it fills you. It's good. It's warm. It's delicious. Anyways, we're going to, into it. Really, this is about Alan Dershowitz and his maniacal need to create scenes on Martha's vineyard every summer. There's always some drama with that guy. He's getting denied some library

books and can't go to a restaurant on the vineyard. It's really tough for the guy. It's true. Interestingly, this time doesn't have to do with Trump. I kind of assumed that Trump would, Trump's name would pop up here somewhere, given that Alan Dershowitz defended him. And that was the whole reason why he was previously banned. Well, I'm sorry, he previously accused a library of canceling him. The library denies this. And of course, eventually did let Alan Dershowitz speak there. But that had to do with Trump and his defense of Trump. This apparently, according to Alan Dershowitz, the reason why a parogi vendor in Martha's Vineyard has declined to

serve him. He claims it's because of anti-Semitism. The parogi vendor claims it's because the progenre vendor who is Jewish, I believe. Yes. Yes. They're Jewish and said that it actually has to do with his defense of Jeffrey, his

relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and his defense of O.J. Simpson. Thank you. I appreciate that. Do you think, before we get to the video, and we do need to get to video, do you think when Derschwitz is on the ferry heading out to, you know, Oaks Bluff, he's, like, got a list going of, like, places where he can have dramatic confrontations on the vineyard. It's just like, you know what? I'm going to go to the ice cream place and demand that they serve me, like, five scoops. And if they don't,

I'm going to accuse them of hating Jews. Do you think that's what's going on here? I, you know, it's, it is a really interesting way to spend your summer personally. I'm really here as the summer vacation expert. You know, I kind of feel a little bit. Is this what you do on your vacation? You, like, look for confrontations. and then you bring a camera around to film it's the opposite which is that vacation is really about long naps leisurely walks swims in the ocean or the pool it's really not about confronting your local library or uh or food vendors unless your vacation usually involves a 3 p.m. parogi break and you're denied it in which case you're entitled to film it all right well enough of us

let's play this confrontation um of alan dershowitz going to what is the standard is called Good Parogi and the co-owner I want to be I'm going to butcher the name but it is what it is. Krem Mescovich

he is the co-owner of Good Parogi Is they? Just to be clear This was actually one of the things That's the center I apologize for that It's actually at the center

of this whole situation as well Proner is they Apologies to Krem for that He's pronoun is they And Dershowitz fucks that up repeatedly You and Alan both Yeah I don't deserve a parogi

this is the confrontation we're going to play it and i'll you know pause it at certain points we can discuss with some commentary let's buy it in an effort to try to restore community and to ask you to sell me for ovi in the interest of keeping the island together so we don't know if one for anti-zionists and one for people who will sell that money so i'd ask you to please just sell me any one of your products to show that you're prepared to sell to anybody and not allow your anti-Zionism to decide which people will love you. Ethan, this man is calling me an anti-Zionist. Excuse me, this man is a saint.

Okay, pause. Excuse me, this man is a saint. Okay, wait a second. So I was under the impression that he had been canceled on Martha's Vineyard, that he has been ostracized. I didn't realize who's this person who's off-screen who's defending, defending him. It's probably like his brother.

I thought the, first of all, he comes in, loaded for bear. He's got a book. He wants to, you know, use the proghi as sort of a proxy for solving the Middle East strife. And poor Krem is just like, you know, I don't like this. I want to comment a little bit about the table. And no offense to Krem. But there's just a lot of open containers on that table. If I were at the progues stand, I would like a little.

bit of a cleaner preroggi stand. Yeah. Well, I mean, this really does seem, and I think it should be emphasized, that this really is a pop-up. Like, truly, I mean, there's five reviews on Yelp. There's really not much on Instagram either. This is really just a person who's making parogis as a very, very small business on the island. This is not, you know, institutional, it seems. This is one person's barogi business. And yeah, it's big enough for Dershowitz to make a big scene over. He's carrying a book, and he's going to hand the book at some point. I don't think we've ever discovered what the book is. He said the name somewhere. I can't remember what it is. I wish I could read what's on his shirt, but I imagine it's like deliberately provocative too. And I do, I don't know about how you feel about

the pen and the pocket holder. I like it. I think it's looking good. I like the shirt, the overshirt. It's, you know, it's nice. He's got a. He's got a style. He's got a style of church. All right. So we have this confrontation. We know it's not going to go well because already there's like 20 people with their cell phone cameras filming it. And that's not going to. They knew he was coming. He knew he was coming. This is, let's just be honest. He's not, Alan is not looking for a piece in the Middle East here. He's looking for a viral moment, obviously. And so I don't think he's going to get his prerogie. But let's just play on and see if he can sort this out. thank you to you to krem please we're in the truth thank you so much the sign behind jursuance is unbelievable very surprised that you hear because of the things that you've been saying about us and the business are just you yeah online yeah well good pieroggi is our business and kremiskevich is me and i really do not appreciate what you've been sharing in the last week since is it true is it true of course you have proved that i am an anti-semi yeah you protested

the jewish culture festival last year which had nothing to do with israel of Zionism. It was just Jewish food, Jewish music, Jewish art. And you protested it. And the rabbi said that was an anti-Semitic act. Do you disagree with that? I do disagree with that. Pause. Do you disagree? You're an anti-Semit? I think I would disagree with that. It's like, what kind of question is that? I thought they did pretty well under cross-examination there. Yeah, I was going to say, if you were crime on this situation, I probably would handle it about the same way. You know you're being set up.

I mean, there's two options here, really. It's like, well, three, I suppose. One is just get right in his face. Be like, get the fuck out of here. The other is to just not engage at all. And I've seen people do that where it's just like, you know, whatever. And then this is sort of the calm, hey, I don't need this. I will just add one other thing.

This is the most Jewish confrontation of all time. Like two Jews just being like, yeah, you shouldn't have protested. your fellow Jews and like, you know, this is like a classic Stein family text thread here. So I relate. Let's continue this video. Hopefully I don't miss gender cram one more time because I feel really bad about this. Okay to protest Jewish cultural events and not be called in the anti-Semite. Thank you.

My vendor just called me over. Excuse me. They let me know that a word that you used made them feel a little uncomfortable. Be quiet. Not anti-Semple. No. What this man is. I like

Sam and they just let me know that that made them feel uncomfortable so if there's anything I can do to help to complete this transaction

I don't want I like this guy and you know about this that my pronouns are day damn and you continue to miss Jenner. You do Sam. I'm absolutely right and I am worse than Dershowitz.

So please stop lying. You are they, you are them. I'm happy to use whatever pronouns you want. This is not about that. This is about you protesting a Jewish event? You did?

Did you protest the Jewish event? You won't answer that question? Do we know who the girls? Are they? Yeah. Or she or him? I think that they have some

they have some sort of relationship is what Instagram seemed to suggest. Outside of the Jewish Cultural Festival will you protest? Did you please not make finish? This is not a class examination. It's a conference. I love it.

That's a good one. Yeah. They had that one ready. I got to say. Yeah, I think she had it ready. She knew. Hey, don't call us figgots. Don't call us figgots.

My parents, my grandparents died in the Holocaust. Don't you call me an anti-Semi. Everybody with banners that said all liberation is inextricably linked. My Jewish culture is a history of resistance against genocide. We are not anti-semit. All right, we can pause it there. I don't think we need to play the rest of it. It goes on and on and on.

Ultimately, Dershowitz does not get the progue. No, no. They shout him down. And he leaves. And I think in the end, I think they, Krem does pretty well for himself, honestly. Ends up in a good spot. Yeah.

I think, you know, it's interesting. Most people have actually seemingly backed down. The Martha's Vineyard community in the past seemingly has kind of caved to some of the whims of Dershowitz. Dershowitz has outlasted them in many instances. In the library instance in the past that we referenced in which Alan was supposedly not disinvited from speaking at the library, but just not invited to what was described as his annual, what he thought was his annual discussion, which was what he had claimed was usually the most popular event speaking event

that the Chilmark Library had all year. And he was not invited to that. Eventually he was invited back the year after all of this. So, you know, he just has a tendency to outlast some of these people. Apparently also on Martha's Vineyard a few years ago, he got into an altercation with Larry David. Yes, that was great. Yes, absolutely. Larry David said that his behavior was shameful. I think his defense of Donald Trump in the Russia investigation and the anti-impeachment trial and his comments about January 6th, I think.

I don't know if it was then. I want to just read. So the Boston Globe or Boston.com, I think it's the globe, is all over this naturally because it's the best story in their backyard. They interviewed or they got a statement from Krem about this. What Krem said is, quote, I have no desire to argue about the legal system in the U.S. or one's right to a fair trial, but I personally know too many sexual abuse survivors, Mr. Dershowitz, consciously decided to befriend and defend men who have accused of abusing and harming women. Crem added, in our minds and hearts selling to Alan Dershowitz was the equivalent to supporting his decisions and statements. So, yeah, the general consensus is that he's fine to do this from a legal perspective. Yeah.

And, you know, I actually have a response. I have some original reporting to bring to the show. I mean, I've led with this. I have some original reporting. I'm actually advancing the story here in a very meaningful way. Okay. What do you got? I texted Alan Dershowitz to ask him, you know, about, about this incident.

I texted him last night around 11.30 p.m. You know, in preparation for this. I wanted to make sure we got this. And, you know, I texted asking. I texted asking if he had any comment on this situation and whether or not he would be taking any sort of legal action against the farmer's market or the vendor. I'm just letting people know.

And he said, and I quote, not if the farmer's market makes a rule requiring all sellers to sell to everyone. So it kind of seems like there might be some sort of legal action that he might be taken because I don't think that the farmer's market is going to require anything. I then asked a follow-up question, asking if he plans on returning to the farmer's market, which is every Wednesday and Saturday. If he plans on being there tomorrow, I have not received a response to that yet, but I absolutely will let my followers know on social media. And I was, of course, let the bulwarks followers know as well as I become updated on this.

Krem says he's never denied, yeah, Krem says he's never denied service to anyone except this one instance with Alan Dershowitz. So we'll see. I don't know if that affects things legally. let me just say the yelp reviews as you noted not many but it is rated the best polish place near west tisbury massachusetts i'm not sure how big the polish cuisine scene is there but there's a few other places i will say but it gets five star reviews but only four of them i will just say one of them was effusive uh where it said um i'm going to read a little bit of it because you know i got to be uh amazing prerogies um it says between manufacturing prerogues and doing pop-ups. I found joy in private cooking. That's him saying his own thing. They have great customer service and even better progis at this righteous parogi vendor. So maybe they're going to get some more reviews after the Dershowitz confrontation. It does really seem like this has been good for business in some ways.

I mean, obviously they had a big crowd of people around and presumably a few of those people might want to buy some parochies. But you know, you said something earlier about how Boston dot com has been all over this story this has been a national news story uh you know one thing that i want i one party that i will say is definitely happy about this confrontation uh is the martha's vineyard times which i think every summer has a different alan dershowitz multi-day long story to follow uh do they have a correspondent on the paper or no i'm not really sure but they definitely they they have been all over this story just like they were all over his the chill mark uh library story though they didn't actually break a lot of the details on that.

A lot of those details were broken by Isaac Chautner in The New Yorker, in an interview in which Alan Dershowitz said that not only was he canceled from the library, but he had also been canceled from, let me look here, he had been canceled from the Martha's Vineyard Hebrew Center, and apparently he was also not welcome at the Martha's Vineyard Community Center, And he also apparently was not invited to a friend's concert in which he had been invited to sit in the front row for many years before, but he was not invited in 2020. Why does he keep going to the vineyard? Just find another place. Go somewhere else. You'll be fine. It's the same reason he's going to the parogi stand after he's already been refused and he goes back several days later.

He lives for the drama. Well, Max, thank you so much for this. I know this was not something you wanted to do. In fact, beg me on multiple occasions to get out of it. You know, I'm easily convinced it. And, you know, I will say one thing to Alan Dershowitz's credit is every time I've reached out to him for comment on various stories. And he really does pop up quite a bit in the media world. He's a pretty, he's been a ubiquitous media figure in an easy-to-reach media figure for a very long time. And, you know, I texted him and he responded fairly promptly with his veiled threat against the Martha's Vineyard West.

I just got to be honest. I just got to be honest. A guy with those resources, that ability to draw meat attention, these connections, I feel like he could have bigger targets than good parochie. No, it's defense of OJ, defense of the president, and proactive legal measures against the Martha's Vineyard two day a week, farmers market. So ridiculous, this whole thing.

If Crems out there watching this, I do actually sincerely want to apologize for misgendering they. I really, you know, that was an actual slip of the tongue. I don't want to know. I don't know if Dershowitz was doing the same thing. But I was, unfortunately, I had a slip of the tongue there. So I do apologize for that. Other than that, I appreciate this, Max.

Thanks so much, man. You're the best. Thanks for having. Have fun on the vineyard next week when you're at your estate and see if you can go get a program. I'll have to go and get some progues. Yeah. Appreciate it. All right.

Thanks for watching. Everyone, subscribe to the feed. Get great content like this. Talk to you.