The Kippa Story

The Kippa....is the Jewish 'hat' that guys wear (if you are true to being Jewish and want to identify yourself).  In a normal day of walking around Wiesbaden, you might bump into one or two guys like this and wearing the 'hat'.  In a Berlin situation....in a more thick neighborhood with Jews present, you might bump into dozens.

This past week, a German government guy (within the national security apparatus).....made the comment that presently, it's a bigger threat to you, if you wear the Kippa while walking on German streets.  His point was that more right-wing people are attacking Jews on the streets of Germany.

So I dug into this.  Statistically (this is the government's own numbers)....there's a 19.6-percent increase of personal attacks on German soil on guys (2018 situation).....compared against 2017.  1504 attacks in 2017, and 1799 in 2018.  Curiously, and I read through a number of sites.....you can't establish who or what was the individual behind the 1799 attacks for last year.  Maybe it was right-wing.....maybe it was left-wing....maybe it was mostly non-Christians and non-Jews.....maybe it was nutcases.....maybe it was radical Islamic types.

How did the government guy come to suggest 'ditching' the Kippa?  Well, he simply made the statement that you'd be better off....NOT wearing the Kippa. 

Some people (suggested by journalists) think that this was an effort to send a message to the mayors, police, and authorities that more needs to be done to prevent personal assaults.  It wasn't received that well by the Jewish guys....they think it suggests more of a threat.

Should this government guy have identified WHERE these attacks took place and suggest that three or four urban regions took up the bulk of the attacks?  That might have helped to center your efforts and let judges know that real efforts to send people off for assaults ought to occur. 

Here's the thing that bothers me.....altogether, there are only around 115,000 Jews in Germany.  You can figure around 50-percent of them are women.  So this puts the numbers of guys who might wear a Kippa....at around 55,000 (taking out the kids).  So you are suggesting 1799 attacks in one year against a possible group of only 55,000 guys?  That's a hefty number if you think about it.  The fact that you can't find a single assault by a Jewish guy wearing a Kippa on a non-Jew?  Well....yeah, that kinda tells the rest of this story.