On 25 April thousands of atheists, Christians, and Muslims joined Jews on the streets of Berlin, Erfurt, Potsdam, Cologne and other German cities in “kippa day”.
They demonstratively wore the skullcap (kippa) used by Orthodox Jewish men, in a protest against antisemitism.
This was sparked by an incident on 18 April, when a young man was attacked on a posh Berlin street for wearing a kippa. He was an Israeli Arab who had put on the kippa to show a friend (so he thought) that antisemitism was slight and there would be no problem.
The chief of Germany’s Jewish community followed up by advising pious Orthodox Jewish men to wear baseball caps instead of recognisably Jewish kippas.
The German government has appointed a commissioner, Felix Klein, to work on countering antisemitism. Klein says that though some Muslims in Germany of recent migrant origin are antisemitic, the problem is larger.
Surveys over decades have shown a consistent 20% of Germans to be antisemitic.
