An Israeli family on holiday in Bad Hofgastein, in Austria's Salzburg province, says it was refused service at a local food stall after the vendor learned they were Jewish and Israeli, according to a report Monday evening in Ynet.
According to the family's account, the vendor pulled the hamburgers he had been preparing for them off the grill and threw them in the bin in front of them as soon as he discovered their identity. The local district authority has opened administrative penalty proceedings against the business owner, who denies the allegations and calls them "nonsense". Israel's embassy in Vienna has expressed deep concern over the incident.
The incident began when Lidan H. and her family approached the stall to buy food. According to their account, the moment the owner understood where they were from and who they were, he made clear they would not be getting food "because of Gaza", pulled the portions from the fire and threw them in the bin.
The family said the experience was difficult and shocking, and that they remained shaken for days afterward. Following the incident, the family filed a formal complaint with the district authority, which confirmed it would open an investigation and administrative penalty proceedings against the stall owner, a preliminary legal step that does not yet constitute a formal finding of guilt.
At the same time, additional anonymous reviews and criticisms began appearing online, allegedly describing similar instances of hostile and racist treatment by the same business owner toward Israelis and tourists who spoke Hebrew in the past.
Following the reports, Elie Rosen, president of the Jewish community of Salzburg, Styria and Carinthia, demanded a swift investigation of the complaint and warned against the spillover of political condemnations of Israel into open Jew-hatred.
Israel's embassy in Vienna responded sharply: "We are deeply concerned by reports that an Israeli family in Salzburg was denied food because of their identity. Discrimination against Israelis and against Jews is unacceptable. If clarifications, warnings and statements are not effective, practical steps must be taken."
Ambassador David Roet added on X that incidents of this kind cannot be separated from the public climate that allows the normalisation of antisemitism and lies against Israel to flourish without response, with families and children as the ultimate victims.
The serious incident comes against the backdrop of strained political relations in Austria, and shortly after Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar attempted to calm tensions in a conversation with his Austrian counterpart, Birgit Reisinger. That followed a sharp attack by Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, who claimed Israel's government is committing "war crimes". In the conversation with his counterpart, Sa'ar emphasised the importance of the alliance with Austria, presented the state's positions on the wave of terror in Judea and Samaria, and discussed the expected diplomatic cooperation between the two countries in the UN Security Council.
