By Shula Rosen(https://unitedwithisrael.org)

A Jewish couple from the United States was attacked in Venice late while walking near the city’s famous Rialto Bridge, according to Italian media reports.

The victims, easily identifiable as members of the Chabad-Lubavitch community, included a man wearing a kippa and long beard and his wife, who is five months pregnant.

The couple had just finished dinner in the city’s historic ghetto quarter when three men began harassing them.

Witnesses told Il Gazzettino that the assailants threw water on the pair, spat at them, and shouted antisemitic slurs, calling the husband a “dirty Jew.”

The men then released a large dog, urging it to attack. The animal lunged at the husband but sank its teeth into his cellphone, which was in his trouser pocket, preventing injury.

The attackers then stole the couple’s phones before fleeing.

Shaken, the victims ran to the nearby Gam Gam kosher restaurant, where they had dined earlier, and received assistance from the owner, Sion Yehiel Banin Rahamim.

“It matters little whether the victims are from Chabad or not,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that such serious attacks happen in our city, which I have always considered, and still consider, tolerant and intelligent. The attack was in no way provoked, and passersby acted as if nothing had happened.”

Although the couple chose not to file formal charges and left Venice for the United States the following morning, members of the Jewish community alerted police, who have since opened an investigation.

Authorities are reviewing security camera footage from the area to identify the assailants.

Local leaders strongly condemned the incident. Samuele Vialli, secretary of the Venice Radical Party, called it “yet another despicable assault driven by racial animosity, signaling retreat to the twentieth century’s most shadowed years.” He added: “Any assault on religious expression constitutes a constitutional violation and a national security endangerment. Zero tolerance must prevail—silence equals capitulation.”

The attack highlights growing concerns over antisemitic hostility in Europe. For many in Venice’s Jewish community, the unprovoked nature of the assault and the indifference of bystanders raise troubling questions about safety in a city long regarded as open and tolerant.