Germans of different faiths donned kippot – traditional Jewish skullcaps – and took to the streets Wednesday in several cities to protest a recent anti-Semitic attack in Berlin and to express concerns about increasing anti-Semitic violence in the country.
The "kippah protest" was triggered by the daytime assault last week of an Israeli Arab wearing a kippah in an upscale neighborhood in the German capital. The attack, in which a 19-year-old Syrian asylum-seeker is a suspect, drew outrage in Germany and sharp condemnation by Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The victim of the attack, Adam Armoush, explained he was not Jewish. He called himself an "Israeli raised in an Arab family" and said he had filmed the attack for the German police and for the German people, "and even for the world, so they can see how terrible it is to be a Jew on the streets of Berlin."
The attack followed reports of bullying of Jewish children in schools and prompted the head of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, to advise Jews not to wear kippot in public in big cities.
Schuster gave a speech Wednesday during the rally, demanding "100% respect for Jews" as well as for Muslims, foreigners, homosexuals and people of all origins.
"Whoever breaks the rules of the game set in our constitution cannot enjoy tolerance," Schuster declared and urged Muslim groups to stand up to anti-Semitism. "There can be no tolerance for intolerance," he said.
In Berlin, more than 2,000 people participated in the "kippah march," a police spokesman said. Similar rallies were held in Cologne, Magdeburg and Erfurt, where a rally was organized by the company that manufactured Zyklon B gas used to murder Jews in Nazi death camps during the Holocaust.
"It is sadly the case that these sorts of incidents are starting to build up and we keep experiencing it: attacks, bullying, threats and it is even happening at the schools," said Berlin Mayor Michael Muller.
"I'd like to thank the Jewish community for organizing today's event," he went on to say. "Because it is important that today so many Berliners make a stand and take to the streets in kippot so that it is made clear that anti-Semitism has no place in our city."
Israeli MK and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid attended the Berlin rally.
"I went out and bought the biggest kippah that can be found in Berlin, I put it on and came to the demonstration," he said. "It's unthinkable that Jews fear to walk around wearing a kippah in Germany in 2018. I won't stand for us and our children being afraid, like our parents and grandparents were afraid. Anti-Semitism has always existed and it will always exist but today, we have a state and an army, so we can march in Germany and tell the anti-Semites to shove off."
Jewish community leaders said it was the biggest such public display against anti-Semitism since before World War II.
Elard Zuehlke, a 26-year-old non-Jewish Berliner, said he came to the rally across from the city's synagogue on Fasanenstrasse because "it cannot be that in Germany there is any kind of anti-Semitism – not in schools, not in public, not at work, not in politics, nowhere."
"This cannot be happening. Germany has to live up to its special responsibility," he said.
Reinhard Borgmann, a 65-year-old Jew who lost several great-uncles in the Holocaust and whose mother only survived because she hid from the Nazis, said he was pleased that dozens of organizations had turned out to support the demonstration.
"As Jews, we want to be able to move freely, whether with a kippah or without," Borgmann said. "We want to be able to practice religion in peace and not be discriminated against and not live in fear. And this event tonight is a sign, and an important one."
A small solidarity rally against anti-Semitism held in the Muslim migrant-dense Neukolln neighborhood of Berlin was quickly dispersed under the pretext that the participants felt threatened.
The World Jewish Congress kicked off a social media campaign to share pictures, dubbed "Ich bin Jude," meaning "I am Jewish."
Also on Wednesday, Germany's music industry scrapped its prestigious annual Echo Awards. This year's Echo prize sparked outrage when it was awarded to a duo accused of reciting anti-Semitic lyrics. Several previous winners returned their awards in prowwww.
The BVMI music association said on Wednesday the Echo prize had been so damaged by the controversy that a fresh start was required.
"We don't want this music prize to be a platform for anti-Semitism, contempt for women, homophobia or for belittling violence," it said in a statement.
The controversial winners were rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang, whose lyrics include "I'm doing another Holocaust, coming with a Molotov" and who sing that their bodies are "more defined than Auschwitz prisoners."
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the Tagesspiegel daily that anti-Semitic attacks were directed at "all of us. ... No one may be discriminated against because of their origin, the color of their skin or religion."
Citing government figures, Tagesspiegel has reported that four anti-Semitic crimes were reported on average per day last year, around the same level as in 2016. The majority – 1,377 of 1,452 – were committed by right-wing radicals.
The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party blames the influx of more than 1.6 million migrants, many from the Middle East, since 2014.
"We sounded warnings very early about the huge strength of Muslim anti-Semitism," said senior AfD member Georg Pazderski.
Germany's Central Council of Muslims and Turkish groups have backed the rallies.
"If you want to fight Islamophobia, then you can't tolerate anti-Semitism either. And we know where anti-Semitism ended up in German history," Gokay Sofuoglu, head of the Turkish Communities in Germany, told the Berliner Zeitung.
In an attempt to assuage concerns, Germany has appointed an anti-Semitism commissioner, former diplomat Felix Klein, who starts work next month, but critics say Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has done too little.
Germany is not alone in its struggle against hostility to Jews. France was recently shocked by the murder of Holocaust survivor Mirielle Knoll in a likely anti-Semitic attack.
France's Jewry also received recommendations to remove their kippot.
French MP Meyer Habib told Israel's Radio Darom that "anyone feeling apprehensive should remove their kippah. ... First of all, you choose life – so it is written in the Bible."
Habib said that he himself had received death threats.
Yaakov Hagoel, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization, sent a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron calling on him to boost legislation and law enforcement against anti-Semitic attacks in the republic.
