A Jewish family, some of them from Israel, said an Uber driver in Vienna assaulted a member of their group and called them “murderers” and “child killers” before forcing them out the vehicle last week.
A Monday post on Facebook by the antisemitism reporting center of the Jewish Religious Community (IKG), the body that formally represents Austria’s Jews, described the incident, the latest in a number of attacks on Israelis in Europe over the summer vacation.
The organization said the family, a Jewish couple with two children aged 10 and 13, and a 75-year-old woman, ordered an Uber to take them to a restaurant to celebrate a birthday.
When the driver realized that some of the passengers were Israeli, he called them “murderers” and said that he did not want to have “child killers” in his vehicle, according to the post.
The organization said the driver pulled over and forced the family out, and continued insulting them as well as physically assaulting the father.
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The organization said that the family had filed a police report.
According to the Ynet news site, Uber said it had immediately suspended the driver and launched an internal investigation.
Oskar Deutsch, president of the Jewish Community of Vienna, said the attack was part of a rising trend of antisemitism in Vienna.
Oskar Deutsch, President of the Jewish Community of Vienna, speaks at a ceremony of commemoration for the victims of the October 7 Hamas attack at Ballhaus Square in Vienna, Austria on October 7, 2024 (Joe Klamar / AFP)
“It’s not enough to condemn antisemitic discrimination, abuse, threats and physical assault,” Deutsch wrote on Facebook.
“A Salzburg cinema does not want to show a movie about Jewish life in Salzburg, Israeli guests are thrown out of restaurants — we are seeing a significant accumulation of such incidents over the past weeks,” he wrote.
Deutsch warned that if “decisive action” is not taken, “then soon there will be no place left for Jews in Europe. No, that’s not an exaggeration.”
Last month, an Israeli said he was told to leave a restaurant in Vienna by a waiter after being overheard speaking Hebrew with two other people. In a post on Instagram, cellist Amit Peled said he was struck by the fact that none of the other diners intervened.
“The initial shock and humiliation were profound. But what struck us even more deeply was what came next — or rather, what didn’t. The people around us were clearly startled, some offered sympathetic glances… and then, quietly, they went back to their dinners, their conversations, their wine — as though nothing had happened,” he wrote. “Welcome to Europe, 2025.”
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