(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 kipah.
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" on the rabbi and his daughter 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 that 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 this year, according to Deutsche Welle. Most involved graffiti or verbal abuse.
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