Jewish father and son attacked by cowardly anti-Semites in Milan

The footage is grim, almost unbearably so. A mob, inflamed by the usual slogans, descends upon a Jewish father and his six-year-old son at a Milan gas station, shrieking "Free Palestine" and "murderer" as though these words were cudgels. The boy, marked out by his kippah and tzitzit, watches as his father is hurled to the ground, beaten, his glasses smashed. [Tzitzit (or tzitzis) are specially knotted ritual fringes or tassels worn in Jewish tradition, primarily by observant Jewish men, as commanded in the Torah (Numbers 15:38-39 and Deuteronomy 22:12). They are attached to the four corners of a garment, typically a tallit (prayer shawl) or a tallit katan, a small undergarment worn daily.]

This is not a scene from some distant dystopia, this is Italy, 2025.

The video, which I will not show here, has been ricocheting across social media. It captures the raw ugliness of the moment. The family, French nationals pausing to refuel, had done nothing to provoke this beyond existing as Jews. The mob's obscene gestures and chants were not a critique of policy but a visceral assault on identity. As the community group Black and Jewish Unity rightly put it, "This isn’t Nazi Germany in the 1930s. This is Italy in 2025." 

One might pause to ask: how far, really, have we come?

The outrage online is palpable, and rightly so. Italians, or at least those with a shred of decency, call it "a shameful embarrassment," the mob "ignorant." 

But this is not an isolated spasm of hatred. Milan, once a beacon of cosmopolitanism, now festers with anti-Semitism. In June, posters reading "Israelis not welcome" defaced Jewish neighborhoods and tourist hubs. These were not subtle political statements but blunt expressions of bigotry, as Milan city council member Daniel Nahum observed: "Anti-Zionism has become the modern form of antisemitism. These signs weren't criticizing the Israeli government-- they targeted all Israelis." 

He's right, of course. It's the kind of lazy, vicious conflation that would have you blame every Russian for Putin or every Iranian for Khamenei. Except, as Nahum notes, "Israel is a democracy." A detail conveniently ignored by those who prefer their hatreds simple.

Walter Meghnagi, president of Milan's Jewish community, lays the blame squarely at the feet of left-wing "pseudo-politicians" who fan these flames. "They do nothing but stoke hatred. They bear a large share of the responsibility for the spread of antisemitism," he says. And yet, the silence from much of the political class is deafening. "At least some from the center-right have stood up to defend us," Meghnagi adds, a faint flicker of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape.

This is not just Milan’s problem. It is Europe's and it's ours. The line between chanting slogans and breaking bones is thinner than we'd like to admit. And when a six-year-old must witness his father beaten for the crime of being a Jew, one wonders how much longer we can pretend this is merely a "protest" gone awry. 

The mob in Milan didn’t just attack a man; they attacked the very idea of a civilized society. And that, surely, is a warning we ignore at our peril.

Hey guys, if you enjoy my content, I hope you'll consider supporting Brain Flushings with a small donation to Buy Me a Coffee. It keeps me going and fuels my late-night writing sessions with fresh ideas. Let's keep the good vibes brewing!

Tweet