Solidarity In Germany

A nice gesture from some Germans (hat tip: Gaia).

germans kippaAfter the leader of a German-Jewish rabbinical seminary said he advised his students to avoid wearing skullcaps in public in the aftermath of a brutal beating of a Berlin rabbi last week, more than 100 resident of that city on Saturday marched in solidarity with the local Jewish community, many of them donning Jewish skullcaps.

On Sunday, more than 1,000 Berliners gathered in the city’s Schöneberg district to demonstrated against anti-Semitism. Rabbi Alter, who was present at the demonstration, said the attackers could break his cheekbone but not his “will to stand up for understanding and interfaith dialogue.”

On Tuesday night, Rabbi Daniel Alter was hospitalized after being beaten on the head by four men. Alter, 53, was wearing a skullcap while was walking in the capital’s Tempelhof-Schöneberg district with his 6-year-old daughter when a youth approached him with the question, “Are you a Jew?” Three other young men joined the attacker, hitting the Jewish man several times and eventually breaking his cheekbone. The attackers then insulted Alter and his religion and issued death threats to his daughter.

The incident was widely condemned by German authorities. As a result of the attack, the rector of the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, which trains liberal rabbis, said he ordered increased security around his institutions.

“We have also given guidelines to our students on how to behave so that they won’t fall prey to such attacks,” Rabbi Walter Homolka told reporters. “We advise them not to wear their skullcaps on the street. Instead, they should choose an inconspicuous head cover. Apparently a Jew is only safe if he is not visible as such.”

While in other parts of Europe, like France, rabbis and communal leaders have long counseled young Jews not to wear skullcaps in public, Homolka’s comments were ill received in Germany. Many observers said that 70 years after the Holocaust it was unthinkable that Jews should have to hide their identity in Germany. Against this background, an activist organized a “kippa flashmob” in central Berlin. About 150 residents on Saturday silently marched through the capital, many of them wearing skullcaps, according to German media reports.

“Berlin wears Kippa,” headlined B.Z., the capital’s largest daily, on Saturday, together with the photos of prominent Berliners — including Mayor Klaus Wowereit — sporting a skullcap.

Now about that circumcision ban

8 thoughts on “Solidarity In Germany”

  1. it seems strange that both the michigan student (link in above comment)where the daily have first reported that his attack was a hate crime and then could find no witnesses now report that police are not going to count this crime as hate(why should the boy make up the story)(they asked if he was a jew before the attack)and now the story above from dave.

  2. It seems that not only Japan deserved an atomic bombing in 1945.

    After the WWII, Germans had to be placed under foreign military administration indefinitely, and fear for their own miserable lives should have been rooted deeply in their pathetic mentality.

    The people which committed the most outrageous atrocities in history should be denied any right to govern itself.

    And after what they have done to Jews, the German swines must prostrate in front of any Jew they encounter.

    In any case, I fail to understand why some Jews are still left in this cursed land.

    Ben Gurion made a great mistake to ‘normalize’ Israel’s relations with this scum country.

    1. I think you’re missing the point.

      Every country has violent scum (even–sadly–Israel, as we have seen in recent days). The question is, how does the general populace react to incidents of scummery. While the initial incident (and those like it) are horrifying, it is very good to see that “regular folk” coming out in solidarity like this.

      1. “Every country has violent scum (even–sadly–Israel, as we have seen in recent days).”

        Are you referring to the self-defensive retaliation of Jewish boys to the Arab colonists’ harassing of Jewish girls in Jerusalem? If so, then congratulations on swallowing the libelous anti-Zionist Arab narrative whole. Thus we see how Israel’s image in the world is besmirched—the Arab imperialist lies are so readily believed.

        1. Based on what some of the accused have said (as quoted last night on ??”?), then your characterization is more than a little inaccurate. There was nothing about “retaliation” or “self-defense” but a heck of a lot about how much ??? it was to beat up “an Arab” (not “the Arab who was harassing” but “AN Arab”) and how great it felt when he thought he’d killed him.

          Sorry, that’s the language of a scumbag.

          1. Sure, go ahead, defend the Arab enemy…

            Even assuming the statements of the accused weren’t forced, there’s no way I’m going to believe the Arab “victims” were innocent, and I can only laud the Jewish boys for finally doing what our milquetoast government won’t do: Making the Arab colonists in the Land of Israel feel less comfortable to be occupying our country.

            If we are to survive, we need to root 100% for our side, just as the Arab enemy does for theirs.

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