Row as Jews told to avoid skullcap
Chief rabbi rejects Marseille warning after teacher is attacked in street, with others labelling it ‘defeatist’
JEWS in France’s second largest city, Marseille, have been advised not to wear skullcaps after a Jewish teacher was violently attacked with a machete in a claimed Daesh attack.
However, the advice, from the city’s Jewish leader, Zvi Ammar, the president of the Consistoire Israélite de Marseille, has been contradicted by France’s chief rabbi, Haim Korsia, who said: “We should not give in to anything – we must continue to wear the kippa!”
Marseille has a Jewish population of about 70,000 in its 855,000 residents and Mr Ammar was reacting after teacher Benjamin Amsellem was attacked in the street and slashed on the shoulder and hand by a 15-year-old youth of Kurdish origin.
Speaking to journalists, Mr Ammar said he had advised the Jewish community to temporarily stop wearing the kippa or yarmulke “but this is not to give in to terrorism or these barbarians but solely to save human lives”.
He added that even if French authorities were doing everything possible to give protection: “Sadly, in an exceptional situation we must take exceptional decisions. I am very sad that we are obliged to hide ourselves a little.”
Elsewhere, Jewish leaders reacted against his call, with the chief rabbi saying “we cannot live in hiding” and calling for “brotherhood” and “a new fight against hate on the internet”.
The president of the CRIF umbrella group for Jewish organisations in France, Roger Cukierman, attacked what he called a “defeatist attitude, of renunciation”.
Jews wear the kippa as part of a requirement to cover their heads during prayer, which some take to mean at all times.
