“Welcome to Europe, 2025,” said Israeli musician Amit Peled, who along with two colleagues was refused service after a waiter heard them speaking Hebrew.
By Canaan Lidor, JNS
An Israeli musician says he and two colleagues were kicked out of a restaurant in Vienna on Thursday for speaking Hebrew, while elsewhere in Austria, a couple from Israel reported being denied service at a trailer park because of their nationality.
The musicians—Hagai Shaham, Julia Gurvitch and Amit Peled—were waiting for the server at an eatery called “Pizzeria Ristorante Ramazzotti” on Meiselstrasse, a quiet street in Vienna’s 2nd district, or Leopoldstadt, which is the city’s most heavily Jewish quarter.
The server heard them speaking Hebrew and asked what language it was. Upon being told by Peled that it was Hebrew, “He looked me directly in the eye and said, without hesitation: ‘In that case, leave. I’m not serving you food,” Peled wrote on Facebook.
“The initial shock and humiliation were profound. But what struck us even more deeply was what came next—or rather, what didn’t. The people around us were clearly startled, some offered sympathetic glances… and then, quietly, they went back to their dinners, their conversations, their wine—as though nothing had happened. Welcome to Europe, 2025,” he continued.
Neither restaurant staff nor the man registered by the Austrian Business Licence Information System as its owner, Ibrahim Abd El-Hay Aly, were reachable by phone for comment.
Meiselstrasse had many Jewish residents before the Second World War, including Siegfried Edelhofer, a child survivor of the genocide who lived across from the building that now houses the pizzeria. His family sent him away to the United Kingdom to safety in the so-called Kindertransport.
Separately, another Israeli man, Nissan Dekalo, and his wife claim they were denied entry to the Camping Dr. Lauth campground in Austria last week when they tried to park their mobile home there while on a tour to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.
A representative of the business told the Dekalos: “There’s no place for Israelis here, get out” when they tried to register, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 TV station
Seeking comment, JNS on Sunday called the number advertised for the campground and spoke to a woman who declined to give her name and stated only, “Yes, this thing did not happen” before hanging up.
Nissan Dekalo is a survivor of the Hamas massacre in Kibbutz Nahal Oz near Gaza.
On Oct. 7, 2023 he fought Hamas terrorists for 13 hours as deputy commander of the kibbutz’s emergency team while his wife and children were hiding in their home shelter from the terrorists, who murdered 15 residents in addition to the four defenders who died in battle, and abducted another eight locals to Gaza.
Racist discrimination is illegal under Austria’s Equal Treatment Act regarding access to and the supply of goods and services, including in the provision of accommodation and entry to bars, clubs, or restaurants, according to the Equal Treatment Commission of Austria. The commission’s website lists an example of an illegal violation involving “a man of Indian origin” who was not let into a nightclub.
In recent years, Austrian officials have consistently taken responsibility for their country’s support of Adolf Hitler, an Austrian native, and his policy of annihilation against Jews.
In the early 2000s, the government reversed the claim that the country had been mostly a victim of German Nazism, citing “the special responsibility imposed on Austria by its recent history.” Teaching about the Holocaust became mandatory, with visits to former death camps and teacher training in Israel.