(Sept. 30, 2026 / JNS)
The owner of a snack bar in Austria binned a hamburger meal that he was preparing for an Israeli family of four after learning their nationality, the family told police, according to a report Saturday in the Kronen Zeitung newspaper.
The father told the newspaper that the snack bar owner took the burgers off the grill and threw them away after hearing they’re from Israel. The owner of the snack bar near Salzburg told the family that they couldn’t have their food “because of Gaza,” they reportedly said.
Elie Rosen, President of the Jewish Community of Salzburg, said he had “great concern” with regard to what happened at the snack bar. Condemnations of Israel “must not become a gateway for antisemitism,” Rosen wrote in a press release.
The Israeli embassy in Vienna wrote on X on Monday: “We are deeply concerned about reports that an Israeli family in Salzburg was denied food because of their identity. Discrimination against Israelis, Jewish women, and Jewish men is unacceptable.”
The owner denies the allegation, and the district authority has opened administrative proceedings, the newspaper reported. The snack bar in question was not named in the Austrian media. The mayor of the town where the incident reportedly happened, Bad Hofgastein, summoned the snack bar owner for a conversation, the newspaper reported, adding the owner had “Muslim roots.”
Mayor Markus Viehauser told the paper: “We are a tourist destination, a cosmopolitan community.” He added: “I definitely want to hear his side of the story. We will leave the further clarification of the matter to the relevant authorities and await their findings.”
The incident follows several cases in recent years in which Israelis said they were denied service, and sometimes accosted, at restaurants and other facilities open to the broad public in Europe and beyond.
In Berlin in February, an Israeli resident said a waiter accosted him obver his Hebrew accent. The waiter described the Al-Hamra restaurant as “Palestinian” and ordered the Israeli to leave, the Israeli said.
In Vienna, in 2025, Israeli musicians Amit Peled, Hagai Shaham and Julia Gurvitch said a waiter refused service at a pizzeria after hearing them speak Hebrew.
In Vigo, Spain, that year, at an eatery called Mimassa, a server was filmed ordering Israeli tourists to leave and accusing them of killing people. Police complaints and legal action followed.
In Naples, Italy, earlier that year, a staffer at Taverna Santa Chiara told Israeli patrons that “Zionists were unwelcome” and ordered them out, according to video captured by the patrons.