Jimmy Zagron, a 41-year-old French Jew from Paris, gave a chilling account Sunday of an antisemitic incident that he and six friends experienced in Barcelona on the night of July 3.
Speaking to French news channel CNEWS, Zagron said hundreds of people surrounded the group for approximately 40 minutes, spat on them and shouted antisemitic abuse, leaving them fearing for their lives.
“For 40 minutes, hundreds of people humiliated us and spat on us,” Zagron said, his voice trembling. “There was a huge crowd surrounding us. We feared we would be murdered. It was extremely frightening.”
The incident began as the group walked through Barcelona’s port area after leaving a synagogue. According to Zagron, a woman wearing prominent pro-Palestinian symbols, including a keffiyeh-style head covering and a Palestinian flag, began shouting “Free Palestine” at them. She clapped rhythmically and raised her arms like a soccer fan leading chants in the stands, prompting the crowd to respond.
Within minutes, Zagron said, dozens and then hundreds of people joined her. The anti-Israel chants rapidly escalated into explicit and vicious antisemitic abuse. The crowd shouted slogans including “baby killers,” “Jews are not welcome here,” “Zionists are not welcome here” and “Death to Israel,” as well as chants directed against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Some members of the crowd even shouted, “We are going to kill Jews.”
“I told them I was French and that I wasn’t from Israel, but it made absolutely no difference,” Zagron said. “They kept going. They did not want to listen.”
Zagron, who was wearing a kippah, repeatedly tried to defuse the situation by explaining that he was French rather than Israeli. The attackers’ disregard for the group’s nationality, however, made the antisemitic nature of the confrontation unmistakable.
One member of the group was a Chabad Hasid wearing traditional Jewish clothing, including a long coat and black kippah, making him a particularly conspicuous target.
Realizing that they were in genuine danger, the group split up in an attempt to avoid being completely surrounded.
“The atmosphere became extremely threatening and frightening,” Zagron recalled. “We felt as though we were being hunted.”
The men eventually managed to escape to their hotel, with members of the crowd pursuing them all the way to the entrance.
Zagron, a Paris resident of Spanish-Tunisian heritage and a follower of the Breslov Hasidic movement, emphasized that he and his friends had done nothing other than walk down the street while visibly Jewish.
“We were attacked solely because we are Jews,” he told CNEWS, one of France’s most prominent and widely watched news channels.
The Barcelona incident comes amid a wave of serious antisemitic incidents in Spain since the October 7 massacre, including physical attacks, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and the distribution of maps identifying Jewish-owned businesses.
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain described the incident as one of the most serious recorded in Barcelona in recent years. Zagron has filed a complaint in France, while Spanish authorities are investigating the case.
