Two women with a British accent filmed themselves harassing Israelis in Vietnam three times, producing viral videos that shocked many Jews and others worldwide, but that Hanoi’s only rabbi said were “unheard of” in the South Asian country.
In the first of three videos of the women, all of which surfaced after April 15, the women approached Israelis at a restaurant, chanting “Boom boom, Tel Aviv” and calling them “rats.” After the Israelis ignored the women, one of them was heard saying: “’Cause we’re just goyim, just animals.”
She also shouted: “Viva Iran!” The man told her that her behavior was “ridiculous,” to which she replied: “Killing children is ridiculous,” “Everywhere you go you will be hated; nobody likes you,” and “110 countries you’ve been thrown out of.”
The two Israelis then leave the room, as the women called them “monsters” and “murderers.”
The viral incidents stood out among many other cases of abuse of Israelis abroad after Oct. 7, 2023, perhaps because of the instigators’ use of antisemitic tropes and the premeditated manner in which they conducted the encounter, documented and shared it.
In another video, the other woman approaches people at a busy restaurant, asking them where they are from, explaining she is “making a documentary.” Upon hearing they’re from Israel, she responded with “free Palestine,” adding: “You are Zionists and you don’t belong in Vietnam.” In a third video, the women are seen following people on the street, leveling similar insults at them.
On X, some users identified the two women as a mother and daughter from Leeds, England, with Pakistani last names. JNS contacted the person identified as the mother through one of her social-media accounts in an attempt to verify the claim. She did not reply in time for publication.
Rabbi Levi Laine, the New York-born co-director of the Chabad House in Hanoi, told JNS that the incident was “unusual and unrepresentative of the experience of nearly all Israelis and Jews in Vietnam. This behavior is practically unheard of in this country,” he said.
He underlined how “the people who engaged in this behavior were not Vietnamese, they were tourists visiting the country. This is not how Vietnamese people treat visitors.”
Vietnam has not seen the anti-Israeli agitation that has been on display in many other countries, said Laine, who has been living in Vietnam with his wife, Mushky, for the past 12 years.
In 2024, a restaurant employee or owner in Hanoi was filmed refusing service to an American Jewish family, telling them, “Free Palestine.”
