An immediate consequence of the massacres on October 7, 2023, when terrorists from the Gaza Strip literally slaughtered more than 1,400 people in Israel and abducted more than 200 people and continued to fire thousands of rockets at Israel, were also antisemitic and terror-glorifying reactions in Austria. For this reason, the antisemitism reporting center of the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG) carried out a special evaluation for the period between October 7th and 19th, 2023. Only those incidents that could be verified in this short time were counted.
The result: A total of 76 antisemitic incidents were reported in the first 13 days since the start of the war. “Compared to the incidents reported throughout 2022, this corresponds to an increase of 300 percent,” summarizes IKG Secretary General and Head of the Reporting Office Benjamin Nägele. Examples of antisemitic incidents include the breaking of a kosher grocery store window, where a young man shouted a phrase in Arabic and ran away. Reports from schools are also increasing. Among other things, there were three cases in public schools in which Jewish schoolchildren were intimidated by peers who glorified terror. There were repeated antisemitic insults on social networks, even outside of the school context. In addition, there were hate messages that relativized or even glorified the Shoah, both online and offline. Incidents from October 20, 2023, such as the Israeli flag being torn down in front of the IKG building on the night from Friday to Saturday, were not included in these statistics. Unfortunately, it can be assumed that the number of unreported cases is high.
