Flashmob participants don kipot in Berlin

(JTA) — Young Jews, Christians and Muslims, as well as local celebrities and politicians, donned yarmulkes and participated in a flashmob in the streets of Berlin.

The gathering on Saturday came in response to an attack in Berlin last week on a rabbi and his 6-year-old daughter. He was identifiable as Jewish because he was wearing a yarmulke.

More than 100 young people took to the streets in Berlin wearing the ritual skullcaps. The flashmob came after  the Berliner Zeitung newspaper published a front page article and photo featuring famous Berlin residents wearing yarmulkes, under the headline  “Berlin wears a yarmulke.”

Berlin’s interior minister, Frank Henkel, condemned what he called the  “cowardly attack,” during Saturday  night’s “Night of Religions” event at which the flashmob took place.

The evening was also a response to a decision by the  Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, a seminary which trains Reform rabbis, to advise its students not to wear yarmulkes in public. 

Germany’s federal office for criminal investigation documented 436 anti-Semitic attacks across the country so far this year, according to Deutsche Welle. Most involved graffiti or verbal abuse.
 

“Like” JTA on Facebook for Jewish news updates!

Click to write a letter to the editor.