‘Free Palestine!’ – Orthodox Jewish teen punched in the face in Switzerland

The British vacationer was punched and spat on as two men shouted ‘Free Palestine!’ at him.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A Hasidic teenager was attacked last week in Davos, Switzerland by two antisemitic passersby, the ultra-Orthodox news site Behadrei Haredim reported Saturday night.

The 19-year-old British national, who was vacationing in the renowned tourist city with his family, had been walking down the street when he was accosted by two men, he told the site.

The pair, who seemed to be in their early twenties, punched him in the face, spat on him and threw away his kippah (skullcap) while shouting, “Free Palestine!” he said.

A non-Jewish onlooker intervened at that point and handed him back his kippah. He also gave the young man his telephone number so that he could give it to the police if he wanted to register a criminal complaint.

The victim then started running back to the Jewish hotel where his family was staying.

“They were definitely of Middle Eastern origin,” he said. “They chased me, but when I arrived at the hotel the two left because they saw that there were many people there.”

The victim notified local police, who came to take a statement from him. He also gave them the number of the witness.

The teen did not need medical treatment, telling the news site that he felt “fine,” though he wouldn’t be venturing out into the street alone anymore.

He and his father returned to the police station on Friday to provide additional details of the attack.

This is not the first time religious Jews have been physically attacked in Switzerland since the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, in which the terrorists murdered 1,200 and took 251 Israelis and foreign nationals hostage, which sparked the ongoing war.

In March, a 15-year-old Swiss citizen of Tunisian origin knifed a 50-year-old Orthodox Jewish man in Zurich, seriously injuring him. He reportedly repeatedly yelled “Death to all Jews” along with other antisemitic epithets before and during the attack.

He was caught by passersby and a police investigation revealed that he had previously expressed support online for the extremist Muslim terror organization ISIS.

Swiss President Viola Amherd issued a statement on X following the attack, expressing her “shock” and stating that “antisemitism has no place in Switzerland.”

A study released later that month by the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) and the Foundation against Racism and Antisemitism (GRA) reported that the number of “real-world” antisemitic incidents in the country had nearly tripled the total for 2022, with half of them occurring over just the last two and a half months of 2023.

Among 155 such incidents, there were ten physical attacks, compared to only one the previous year.

antisemitic attackDavosIsrael-Hamas war