Dr. Leslie Chen Mrejen, 37, a Tel Aviv dentist who immigrated from Paris seven years ago, planned to celebrate New Year’s Eve with her husband and their three-month-old son at a Landwer Café branch in Tel Aviv's Azrieli Mall. During the visit, she says, she was asked by the manager to stop breastfeeding her baby—and even to leave—on the grounds that the café is kosher and therefore breastfeeding was not permitted.
“We went out to celebrate New Year’s Eve in our own way because we have a baby, and we thought of going to Azrieli Mall,” Chen Mrejen says, describing what she calls a traumatic incident. “My husband took time off and we walked around the mall. I was hungry, and when you’re breastfeeding, you’re even hungrier. I told my husband we’d sit down at Landwer and get something to eat. He went to the restroom and I stood in line to get in. I told the hostess that my son had just woken up crying and needed to eat, so I had to sit down. After 20 minutes, they seated me, and my husband still hadn’t come back from the restroom. I sat down and started breastfeeding my son.
“A few minutes later, a waitress came up to me and said something like, ‘I hate to do this, but that's not allowed here.’ She didn’t even explicitly say that breastfeeding wasn’t allowed—she didn’t dare and was visibly uncomfortable. I told her I was in the middle of chaos, my baby was crying and he had to eat. It’s important to note that I didn’t have a cover and I didn’t cover myself, but I wasn’t exposed and nothing could be seen. The waitress said it was an instruction from above. I asked her, ‘What from above—the instruction that breastfeeding is forbidden?!’ She just rolled her eyes and added, ‘I’m really sorry.’ She was clearly very uncomfortable.”
Chen Mrejen says she was stunned and didn’t know how to react. “When my husband came back from the restroom, I told him and he froze. We both froze and didn’t really know how to respond,” she continues. “If I had known this would happen, I would have reacted differently. But because it was so surprising and unexpected, I started shaking and crying, and then decided I wouldn’t stay there—just finish breastfeeding and leave. While I was still breastfeeding, a manager came over and asked if I could cover up. I asked him, ‘Do you see anything?’ He said it was a kosher, religious branch. I told him I don’t see any religious people here—it’s Tel Aviv in 2026, what’s going on? He said it doesn’t matter if there are religious people or not—breastfeeding isn’t acceptable here. I told him it’s the most natural thing there is, and he said breastfeeding isn’t allowed to avoid lawsuits from customers over harassment. He didn’t understand that the fact he commented to me—that’s the harassment.”
Chen Mrejen and her husband left the café, but she asked him to bring her something small to eat to ease her hunger. Even when they tried to get takeaway, she says, they were made to feel unwelcome. “My husband is a very calm person, and he was not in a good state. He ordered me an orange juice, but it didn’t arrive. When he went to pick it up, the manager said to him, ‘But you’re not staying here, right?’ He really rushed us out, even though we obviously didn’t want to stay anyway.”
She describes the experience as humiliating and traumatic. “I felt like they were treating my child—who is only three months old and just wanted to eat—as if he were repulsive,” she recalls. “I felt like a bad mother who couldn’t provide him with the most basic thing in the world, and all the while he was, of course, crying and screaming.”
According to Chen Mrejen, the franchisee contacted her after she shared the story on social media, but after apologizing, he clarified that breastfeeding is not allowed at his branch so as not to embarrass other people. “What is embarrassing about breastfeeding a baby? Again, I wasn’t exposed, and several mothers who were there confirmed that to me. He apologized and wanted to compensate me—but I won’t be going back there.”
The result, she says, is a loss of the basic sense of freedom and security to be out in public with her baby. “Now I’m already afraid to breastfeed in public,” she says. “I love breastfeeding, I love this very special bond with my son. Breastfeeding isn’t always easy, which is why it should be encouraged—not undermined by making women who choose to breastfeed feel like they’re doing something wrong.”
Landwer said in response: “Landwer is committed to creating a respectful, inclusive and safe public space for every guest. The chain’s management was surprised by the incident, which does not align with the chain’s guidelines and values. Landwer works to protect the right to breastfeed in any public space and views it as a natural and legitimate act. Once the case became known, the branch manager contacted the guest, expressed regret over her experience, and acted to compensate her. At the same time, the chain is conducting a thorough review to examine the details of the incident and is reinforcing procedures with staff, in order to prevent similar cases and ensure a respectful and equal hospitality experience for all.”