In Hitler’s city, I was assaulted for being a Jew
On the eve of Shabbat, while taking a peaceful stroll with my wife, Debbie, I was violently assaulted in the heart of Vienna by a pro-Hamas mob. The chilling events that followed at the police station left me questioning whether the city has learned anything from its dark history.
On Friday evening, just before Shabbat, in the heart of Vienna — the city that once cheered Hitler as a savior — I was shoved, kicked, and manhandled by a mob of Islamist extremists. My “crime” was simple and unmistakable: wearing a kippah and tzitzit in public. In moments, what should have been a tranquil walk through one of Europe’s most beautiful capitals turned into a scene of rage and violence that could have been lifted from the darkest chapters of the city’s past. And as shocking as the assault was, what followed at the police station left me questioning whether Vienna has any sympathy for Jewish victims of hate crimes, or if they simply treat them as a bothersome nuisance.
Debbie and I were near Stephansplatz when we came across a Free Palestine rally — dozens of people shouting lies about Israel and chanting “From the river to the sea,” an open call for another Holocaust. The moment they saw me, their faces twisted in rage. Several men broke from the crowd, surrounding me, demanding I leave. I refused to surrender my right to stand in a public square.
They closed in. Someone kicked me. Hands grabbed my shirt and tzitzit, pulling me into a scrum of raging men with fanatical Jew-hatred in their eyes. Debbie watched in horror as I was shoved and assaulted, the air thick with screaming slogans — the same old poison in new packaging.
I have never hidden my Jewishness — not in Oxford, or New York, or Jerusalem, or even in Arab countries I visit and love. I wasn’t about to start in Vienna, the city of Hitler’s antisemitic beginnings under infamous Jew-hating mayor Karl Lueger.
Ten police officers arrived. I expected protection. Instead, I was treated like an aggressor. “Calm down or you’ll be arrested,” one barked. My kippah had been knocked off, my glasses broken, my shirt torn — yet they demanded my ID and acted as if I were the problem.
Two American tourists — both Christians — came to my defense. One had filmed the entire attack and sent it to Debbie. The other, a retired California police officer, told Austrian police he’d witnessed the whole thing. They said his testimony wasn’t needed. He was an absolute hero, and he and his wife, who was wearing a cross, insisted on accompanying me to the police station to testify on my behalf and to protect me.
It was minutes before Shabbat when police insisted I go to the station. For two hours, I sat there as they read me my rights and took statements. They accused me of playing games when I hesitated to use my phone on Shabbat to find videos. The retired American cop hero and his wife stayed the entire time to testify on my behalf.
Only after reviewing multiple videos did the police grudgingly acknowledge that I was the victim. Even now, I don’t know if my attackers were arrested or questioned. Officers refused to give me their full names or contact information, giving me only the scribbled names of their badges which is itself barely legible. They refused to give me a police card or to even type their badge numbers.
This is Vienna — the city where Lueger’s statue still stands in 2025, honoring a man who inspired Hitler’s Jew-hatred. It’s the city where a million Austrians cheered Hitler’s Anschluss speech at the Heldenplatz in March 1938.
The mob that attacked me wasn’t draped in swastikas; their flags claimed to be about “justice.” But the hatred in their eyes was the same. When I was shoved and kicked, I could almost hear the roar of that 1938 crowd.
Europe tells itself it has learned from its past. Yet in city after city, anti-Israel rallies have become open calls for violence against Jews. The chants have changed, the intent has not. Police stand back — or, as in my case, turn suspicion on the victim.
It’s a dangerous illusion to think Europe has inoculated itself against antisemitism. The virus mutates, finding new slogans and excuses. But the symptoms — fear, humiliation, assault — remain the same.
“If Austria allows this to pass without consequences, it tells every Jew in the country: you are on your own.”
Debbie has been through tense moments before, but I’ve never seen her so shaken. Being attacked is bad enough; having your spouse watch, powerless, while police threaten to arrest you is something else entirely.
For a rabbi who spends his life defending others, the degradation was the hardest part. That night, aside from two brave Christian American tourists, I had to defend myself.
I want my attackers brought to justice. I want Austria to prove it won’t tolerate mobs assaulting Jews in its capital. I want police trained to recognize antisemitic violence and protect victims, not persecute them.
I first came to Vienna in the early 1990s to visit my dear friend Simon Wiesenthal, the great Nazi hunter, whom I had brought to Oxford University to lecture before 1000 students. He lived fearlessly in the belly of the beast. But since his death in 2005, the situation for Jews in Austria has worsened.
Any Jew could have been in my place that night. If Austria lets this pass, it sends a clear message to its Jewish community: you are on your own. Worse. If you get into antisemitic trouble, we may blame you as the victim for bringing it upon yourself. And we know where that message leads.
When Jews say “Never Again,” we mean now — when a Jew is attacked for wearing a kippah in Vienna. We mean now — when police treat the victim of antisemitic violence as a suspect.
I will not be silent. I will tell this story everywhere — to American leaders, to Austrian officials, to every friend of human rights. Vienna must choose: will it be the city of Mozart and Mahler — or the city where Jews are assaulted in the streets while statues of Jew-haters stand tall?
For my part, I will walk those streets again, wearing my kippah, standing tall (well, as tall as a five-foot-six Jew can). And I will make sure the world knows what happened.
Austria, the world is watching. Do the right thing.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood is an American author, broadcaster, and public speaker. He is the founder of the World Values Network and the author of more than 30 books on ethics, Judaism, and politics, including “Kosher Sex” and “Judaism for Everyone.”