A pro-Hamas demonstration in Vienna. Photo: Reuters/Andreas Stroh

‘You Are the Shame of Austria’: Jewish Artist Assaulted in Central Vienna After Protest at Antisemitic Mayor’s Monument

Jewish Austrian artist Alon Yishai has been physically attacked and verbally abused in broad daylight in central Vienna — one of the latest anti-Jewish attacks amid growing concerns over rising hate crimes and an increasingly hostile climate for Jews and Israelis across Austria.

Yishai, a former president of Austria’s Jewish Students’ Association, was attacked last week in Vienna’s city center, shortly after participating in an academic and artistic tour during which activists used spray chalk and placed “shame” stickers on the monument of Karl Lueger, the late-19th-century Vienna mayor widely regarded as one of Austria’s most prominent historical promoters of antisemitism.

According to eyewitness accounts, a bystander approached Yishai after police had left the scene, asked about his origins, and, upon learning that he was Jewish, told him: “You are the shame of Austria.”

Another individual then allegedly joined the confrontation, physically and verbally attacking participants in the demonstration. The assailants allegedly spat at the group while shouting antisemitic slurs, including “Jewish pigs,” and praising Hitler as an “idol.”

Earlier in the day, Yishai had taken part — alongside academics, students, professors, and public figures — in a public demonstration at the Lueger monument, one of Vienna’s most contentious memorials, which Jewish community leaders and Holocaust survivors have long demanded be removed.

Although the demonstration remained peaceful, a large police force was deployed to the scene, and authorities later filed charges against Yishai and the vice rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, accusing them of disturbing public order and causing property damage.

Eyewitnesses told the Austrian newspaper Der Standard that police ordered Yishai to clean the monument himself, but he reportedly refused, arguing that the markings had been made with chalk and could be easily removed with water.

After the attack, Yishai said the incident demonstrated that the Lueger monument continues to represent a painful legacy of antisemitism in Austria.

Milli Li Rabinovich, chair of Austria’s Jewish Students’ Association, who was present at the scene, condemned the attack as a stark example of the country’s worsening climate of antisemitic hostility.

“It is shocking to see large police forces deployed over spray chalk, only for people to be left unprotected moments later and subjected to brutal antisemitic violence,” Rabinovich said in a statement.

Like most countries across the Western world, Austria has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Antisemitism in Austria remained at alarmingly high levels last year, reaching its highest point since records began, according to recent data that highlights a persistently hostile environment for Jews and Israelis across the country, marked by harassment, vandalism, and targeted attacks.

Earlier this year, the Antisemitism Reporting Center of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG) — the official body tracking antisemitic incidents against Austria’s Jewish community — released its annual report documenting 1,532 cases in 2025, the highest figure on record.

Among the reported cases were 19 physical attacks, 27 threats, 205 incidents of property damage, 439 mass mailings, and 842 instances of offensive behavior, averaging 4.2 incidents per day — slightly higher than 4.13 in 2024.

While the data reflected a decline from the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, with incidents peaking at 8.13 per day in 2023, the figures remained far above pre-war levels, which averaged just 1.55 incidents daily.

According to the report, these trends reflect a growing normalization of inciting rhetoric that trivializes the Holocaust, equates Israel with Nazi Germany, and frames Palestinians as “the new Jews,” further intensifying an already hostile environment for Jewish communities in Austria.