What It Felt Like to Be Visibly Jewish in Switzerland

Antisemitism doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it can feel like a subtle chill down your neck — not quite cold enough to warrant a coat, but unmistakable enough to leave you with a shiver. That’s what it felt like walking through Switzerland last week as part of a visibly Orthodox family.

We were on a summer trip with my husband’s family, visiting Switzerland for the first time. A group of six clearly Orthodox Jews — four men in yarmulkes and tzitzit, two women in head scarves, and one gorgeous, giggling baby. Thank God, we weren’t harassed: No slurs and no threats. But we were watched. I felt stares that lingered too long, unsmiling glances that trailed us through the Zurich train station, across scenic railcars, and in gondola lines winding toward alpine peaks.

It wasn’t overt and it wasn’t loud. And to be fair, we met some warm and kind people along the way. But there were moments — moments of silence, of subtle chill, of eyes that didn’t look away — that made me wonder: Is this because we’re Jewish?

Maybe it wasn’t meant with malice. But it felt like something. A quiet kind of exclusion you can’t quite name — yet still feel in your bones. It left me unsettled. Was I imagining it? Was I being too sensitive? Did I have a reason to feel on edge? I’m not sure. But maybe.

Maybe it was my own heightened self-consciousness — the result of a world where antisemitism is on the rise and being visibly Jewish feels increasingly like walking on eggshells. You scan the room and you read expressions — wondering if you’re safe, wondering if you’re welcome.

At first, I tried to explain it away. Maybe it’s cultural to be more reserved. Maybe they were curious. But, I told myself, the stares didn’t feel curious. They felt cold. And I felt myself shrinking beneath them. And then came the comments.

“Are you from Israel?” asked an Uber driver. A man on a bike outside the Lucerne train station asked the same. Harmless, maybe — until he launched into “the big war,” “the conflict,” and what Israel is “doing,” as if our Jewishness made us spokespeople for a crisis we didn’t raise and hadn’t been prepared to defend. But our Jewishness made us stand out. And somehow, it made us responsible.

Switzerland doesn’t typically top the list of places where Jews feel unsafe. Compared to some of its European neighbors, it’s considered relatively calm. Still, antisemitic incidents in Switzerland rose by 43% in 2024 — an unprecedented spike. Europe, of course, carries a long, painful history of antisemitism. But the present is no less complicated.

And in the shadow of — and atop — the Alps, I kept thinking of Switzerland’s own World War II history. Of its infamous “armed neutrality,” a position that, at times, looked a lot like moral indifference.

Holocaust survivor and writer Elie Wiesel once said: “Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor — never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten…In denying their humanity, we betray our own.”

It’s a chilling reminder: silence isn’t innocence. Choosing not to take a stance is a stance — and it says something: Indifference has always protected the perpetrator more than the victim.

Now that I’m home, I find myself asking: What does it mean to be safe, really? Is it just the absence of violence, or also the presence of welcome?

It’s easy to say, “At least nothing happened.” But I think there’s value in naming this quiet discomfort for what it is: a subtle rejection. It’s a reminder that for many Jews — especially those of us who wear our identity on our sleeves (and heads) — public space doesn’t always feel like it belongs to us.

And maybe that’s the most chilling realization of all.

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