Two men were beaten outside a Santana Row restaurant on Sunday afternoon in an incident that is being investigated as a potential antisemitic hate crime, San Jose authorities said Tuesday.
The incident, captured on video circulating on social media, passed around on social media — alarmed members of the local Jewish community, with some describing it as part of a rising number of antisemitic incidents in recent years.
“It’s extremely disturbing,” said Daniel Klein, CEO of Jewish Silicon Valley. “I wish our community was surprised by this incident, but unfortunately, this has been the environment that the Jewish community has had to operate in for several years now.”
Around 3:38 p.m. Sunday, officers responded to reports of a fight on the 300 block of Santana Row, according to the San Jose Police Department. Three men approached two victims and an “altercation occurred” between the groups that “became physical,” authorities added.
The two victims told police that the suspects had used antisemitic language during the incident but police did not further specify what was said. Klein, who has been in contact with the victims of the attack, said that the two men are Israeli-American and were speaking Hebrew to each other.
A video of the incident shared with Bay Area News Group shows the group in a patio area in front of Augustine, a restaurant at Santana Row. One man repeatedly punches a man lying on the ground while another man appears to hold his feet. A third suspect can be seen punching a second man as he walks outside from inside the restaurant.
The three men then flee past a neighboring store as witnesses begin to express shock.
“These three individuals came out of nowhere, and one of the victims asked, ‘Do I know you?’ ” Klein said. “They started beating the two of them, knocking one of them out.”
Melissa Escudero, a 20-year-old resident of Sunnyvale, was sitting outside a nearby wine bar and filmed the incident.
The two victims were standing and waiting for a table at the restaurant, she said, when the three men approached them, “blurted something out loud,” then “just began to hit both of the individuals.”
One victim later told Escudero, she said, that the attackers had heard him speaking Hebrew with the man he was with and pointed at his Star of David necklace.
Reports of Israelis being violently attacked in San Jose, California, after assailants heard them speaking Hebrew at the Augustine restaurant in Santana Row. pic.twitter.com/u9sCvC8T96
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) March 10, 2026
“One of them seemed to fall on the first hit,” she said. “They immediately turned to the other individual that was standing and carried him, threw him to the ground and just continued to hit him, ripped his shirt.”
One of the victims’ phone and glasses also went flying during the attack, she added.
“It just seemed like they were doing it with such anger,” Escudero said.
None of the bystanders stepped in to help, Escudero said, which was “very frustrating.”
“No one even really said anything except there was some ladies next to us and said like, ‘Oh, shame on you guys,’” she said. “No one did anything at all.”
The suspects fled before law enforcement arrived, authorities said. The victims sustained minor injuries that were evaluated at the scene by medical personnel.
Police had not released any suspect descriptions as of Tuesday afternoon.
Staff at Augustine declined to comment on the incident when contacted Tuesday, citing the ongoing SJPD investigation.
On Tuesday, Jewish Silicon Valley connected with SJPD as well as local elected officials, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and the Israeli Consul General to share what happened, Klein said. The organization also asked anyone with photos, videos or other information regarding the incident to share it with authorities. Any photos or videos can also be sent to info@jvalley.org.
Other incidents — including the recent photograph of students forming a “human swastika” at a South Bay school — have spread larger fears among the Jewish and Israeli-American communities.
Klein estimated that the cost of security for Jewish institutions over the past several years has gone up between 100% to 300%, which makes the Jewish community have to decide “between security or Jewish joy.
“We believe one of the antidotes to antisemitism is joyful, unapologetic Jewish engagement,” Klein said. “But it is becoming a lot more costly to be able to create those environments because unfortunately, this isn’t a one-off.”
Klein called for the police and district attorney’s office to “use all aspects of the law” to hold the perpetrators accountable, and for elected officials to come out “forcefully and loudly” against “hate and violence towards anyone, let alone the Jewish community and Israeli community,” he said.
Tali Klima, spokesperson for Bay Area Jewish Coalition, added that the local Jewish community is “absolutely horrified and devastated by the attacks that took place on Sunday.”
“Santana Row is a place we all frequent and enjoy,” she said. “To think that such an attack could occur in broad daylight in front of many onlookers just for being Jewish is terrifying. We call on San Jose Police to investigate this incident for what it is: a hate crime. We further call on local elected officials to not only condemn this unfettered hatred, but to take decisive action to protect the local Jewish community.”
The incident remains under active investigation by SJPD’s assaults unit as a possible hate crime, authorities said.