Three elderly Israeli women were expelled last Saturday from the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid after staff objected to them carrying items identifying them as Jewish, including an Israeli flag and a Star of David necklace. The incident was reported Monday by the Spanish news site Okdiario. According to the report, the three tourists were aggressively harassed by other museum visitors and were ultimately removed by a security guard who said that “some visitors were disturbed that they are Jewish.”
The Reina Sofía, considered one of the world’s leading cultural institutions, held an exhibition during the Israel-Hamas war titled “From the River to the Sea” in solidarity with Palestinians and has hosted numerous anti-Israel protests in which antisemitic incidents were reported. Okdiario noted that the museum operates under the authority of Spain’s Culture Ministry.
According to the report, the three women, one of them a Holocaust survivor of Hungarian origin, arrived at the museum accompanied by a Spanish woman who recorded the incident on video. Several visitors reacted angrily to the Jewish symbols the women were wearing, calling them, among other insults, “crazy child killers.”
Instead of receiving assistance from museum staff, a senior official at the institution instructed a security guard to remove the group from the premises, while no action was taken against those who allegedly harassed them.
Okdiario wrote that “the museum staff share responsibility for this racist harassment” and reported that in the video footage the guard is seen demanding that the women leave. Their Spanish companion, a Catholic Christian, protested that instead of helping them confront the visitors who insulted them, the guard chose to expel them. He responded that they had to leave because “some visitors were disturbed” by the fact that they were Jewish.
The guard also told the women to conceal the Jewish symbols, claiming they were not permitted to display them publicly. Their companion argued there is no legal prohibition on displaying religious symbols or flags, and that the demand therefore constituted a violation of the law in an official building of the Spanish government by an employee of a government-affiliated agency.
The companion, a Madrid resident, later told the Spanish newspaper that “it is unacceptable for someone to be punished in this way without having broken any law, in an official institution supported by the Spanish government.”
She added that the women “were wearing completely standard Jewish symbols that are not offensive at all. It is like someone wearing a shirt of their favorite soccer team or carrying their national flag. But from the moment we arrived and they noticed the Jewish symbols, the museum staff treated us with hostility.” She said she is considering filing a complaint against the museum and possibly pursuing legal action.