Israelis Move Into a Small Italian Town, and the Mayor Gets Death Threats

Varallo is a small town in northwestern Italy, where some Israelis, eager for a quieter life than the one they led in embattled Israel, far from the sirens warning of incoming missiles, and the general tension of a country at war, have now settled.

At least one antisemite in the area was mightily displeased with their appearance, and has now made death threats to the mayor, presumably hoping he would expel the Israelis, but there is, of course, no possibility of that. More on the attempt to threaten both the mayor and the several hundred Israelis who now live in Varallo can be found here: “Italian Mayor Receives Bullet-Laced Death Threat Over Growing Israeli Community in Northern Town,” by Ailin Vilches Arguello, Algemeiner, June 22, 2026:

An Italian mayor in the northern Piedmont region received a death threat over the weekend accompanied by a handgun bullet, with a message threatening both him and members of the local Israeli community, prompting renewed fears of escalating antisemitic hostility and politically motivated violence.

Pietro Bondetti, the mayor of Varallo, a town in the Valsesia Valley in northern Italy, received a threatening letter on Friday containing a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson bullet and bearing the headline “F**k Israel.” It was signed by an organization calling itself the “Anti-Zionist Movement.”

The letter, which arrived in the municipality’s regular mail, threatened Bondetti and Ugo Luzzatti, founder of the Baita Project — a large-scale initiative designed to help Israeli families relocate and integrate into the town — accusing them and other local officials of facilitating the “settlement of Nazi-Zionists” in the area….

Over the last two years, the Israeli community in Varallo has expanded significantly through the Baita Project an initiative, which has helped relocate roughly 70 families from Isael o the town, contributing to its demographic revival and the restoration of previously abandoned properties.

Across Italy, Jewish communities have faced an increasingly hostile climate marked by vandalism, threats, harassment, and physical attacks, prompting growing concerns among community leaders about the normalization of antisemitic rhetoric and the risk of further violence….

These 72 Israeli families have brought back to life whole neighborhoods where the houses had long stood empty. They are model migrants, starting small businesses, participating in the life of the town, asking for nothing, and grateful to the Italians who have welcomed them. Compare this behavior with that of the Muslim migrants throughout Europe, who refuse to assimilate into societies reflecting the values of non-Muslims, the “most vile of created beings,” but are happy to take advantage of all the benefits that the generous welfare states of Western Europe provide, and to supplement that support through crime — street robberies, home burglaries, shoplifting, drug trafficking. And when Muslim males in Europe feel the urge, there are always infidel girls and women to be taken advantage of.

No death threats are going to scare off the Israelis who, after all, have lived for many years not just with threats but with acts — the terrorist acts committed by Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. As for Mayor Bondetti, in contacting the police, he has made clear that he, too, will refuse to be intimidated. He was one of the moving spirits, after all, along with Ugo Luzzati, in the effort to encourage Israelis to move into Varello in order to help revivify the town. And no doubt the Italian police are right now doing their utmost to locate the man — a Muslim migrant? An Italian nostalgic for the “Leggi razziali” that Mussolini put into force in 1938? — who sent that minatory bullet, wrapped inside a letter full of nauseating antisemitic imprecations.