Israeli-American cellist Amit Peled says he and two fellow musicians were asked to leave a pizzeria in Vienna after a waiter refused to serve them for speaking Hebrew. The incident, which Peled described in a widely shared Instagram post, allegedly took place on 23 July 2025, just hours before a sold-out concert.
“After taking our order, the waiter returned and suddenly asked what language we were speaking,” Peled wrote. “I replied casually, ‘English and German.’ ‘No, no,’ he insisted. ‘What were you just speaking now?’ I answered, ‘Hebrew, of course.’ He looked me directly in the eye and said, without hesitation: ‘In that case, leave. I’m not serving you food.’ Just like that.”
Peled, who was dining with violinist Hagai Shaham and pianist Julia Gurvitch, said they were left “profoundly shocked and humiliated.” Still, it was the response of other diners that struck them most. “The people around us were clearly startled, some offered sympathetic glances… and then, quietly, they went back to their dinners, their conversations, their wine — as though nothing had happened,” he said. He added, “Welcome to Europe, 2025.”
Speaking to i24NEWS, Peled compared the silent response to the bystander behaviour of the 1930s, calling it “unacceptable” and a reminder of why he must “defend Israel, even more strongly than before.”
Despite the incident, the trio went ahead with their concert that evening. “Performing Dvořák’s Dumky Trio to a completely sold-out hall offered us a rare kind of healing — a fleeting but powerful moment of grace amid the dissonance,” Peled wrote.
The restaurant’s management, however, has denied the allegations, telling Austrian outlet Die Presse: “Nothing like that happened. It wasn’t in our restaurant.”
Photo credit: Instagram @violoncellisteamitpeled
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