Swiss Yeshiva Students threatened at knifepoint on Shabbat

Friday evening of began peacefully for ten yeshiva students as they walked near Lucerne’s train station. But at around 8:30 p.m., a man approached and asked “Are you Jews?” Before the group could answer, he spat at them.

The students rushed toward the station’s open plaza. But the man, described by witnesses as Arab, pursued them. Then he pulled out a knife and pressed it against one student’s stomach, while he shouted pro-Palestine slogans.

Hope came in the form of strangers. Local passersby, sensing the escalating danger, rushed forward. Startled, the attacker panicked and fled into the night, leaving the students shaken but unharmed. “It was terrifying,” one student later posted on social media, his account spreading rapidly on X. “We tried to walk away, but he wouldn’t stop. Those people saved us.”

Swiss police arrived quickly but found the suspect gone. Bound by Shabbat restrictions, the students couldn’t file a formal complaint until after the Sabbath, and with Swiss police stations closed on Sundays except for emergencies, they were told to return on Monday. It's possible that security cameras at the busy station recorded the incident, offering police a lead to identify the assailant. But X posts decried the lack of an immediate arrest. “The police do nothing even when there’s evidence,” one student wrote.

The attack comes amid a troubling rise in antisemitism in Switzerland. The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) reported a 43% surge in antisemitic incidents in 2024, with 221 cases in German, Italian, and Romansh-speaking regions, up from 155 in 2023. Verbal abuse and antisemitic comments, like those hurled at the students, accounted for 65.5% of cases. A March 2024 stabbing in Zurich, where a 15-year-old Swiss-Tunisian attacked an Orthodox Jewish man while pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, had already heightened fears, prompting the SIG to bolster security at Jewish sites.

Set against global tensions over the Israel-Palestine war, the Lucerne incident has deepened concerns. Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, followed by Israel’s military response in Gaza, antisemitic incidents have spiked across Europe. In Switzerland, 32% of Jews now avoid wearing visible Jewish symbols, up from 19.5% in 2020, with 28% considering emigration due to safety fears.

Rabbi Chaim Drukman of Chabad in Lucerne spoke of resilience: “No one stays at home. We feel at home in Switzerland, but we know there’s another home in Israel.” A statement from a Muslim community group condemned the attack while the SIG urged calm. The SIG noted that physical attacks, though rare, are rising, with the Gaza war fueling tensions.