A pro-Hamas demonstration in Vienna. Photo: Reuters/Andreas Stroh
Austrian police have launched an investigation after a 12-year-old Jewish boy was brutally attacked by a group of classmates on his way home from school in Vienna, sparking outrage within the country’s Jewish community and renewed calls for swift action against rising antisemitism.
On Tuesday, the boy reportedly had a dispute with a classmate earlier at school. As he was heading home, a group of students followed and harassed him.
According to the boy’s mother, he was repeatedly kicked and punched by his classmates, who also shouted antisemitic slurs and threats during the attack.
“You Jew, if you say anything, I’ll tell everyone you’re Jewish – then you’ll see what happens to you,” one of the assailants reportedly told him, according to the Austrian outlet oe24
The victim was later taken to a hospital with bruises and other injuries across his body.
Shortly after the incident, the boy’s mother filed a police report, prompting Vienna authorities to launch an investigation. As of Friday afternoon, no arrests had been made.
The boy’s mother said this was not the first time her son had been targeted in an antisemitic attack, accusing the school of repeatedly covering up such incidents.
Now, she is urging authorities to transfer her son if the school continues to “sweep under the rug” what she describes as a persistent pattern of antisemitic harassment.
According to her testimony, her son was also physically attacked earlier this year when a female classmate choked him and tried to push him down the stairs, leaving him with a neck injury that required a brace for several days.
The boy has also been subjected to sexualized insults, threats, and blackmail after photos of him were posted on TikTok without his consent.
Despite repeated complaints, the boy’s mother said the school took no effective action, even allowing chants of “from the river to the sea” to echo through the halls without any teacher intervention.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” is a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
“The school failed to protect him,” the mother said. “Only after things escalated did we decide to file a complaint with the police.”
Austria’s Jewish community has faced a troubling surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Jewish leaders have consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes they continue to face.
