PARIS — An Israeli journalist who walked around Paris for hours while wearing a kippah to test attitudes to Jews documented multiple threats and insults hurled at his direction.
Zvika Klein, a reporter for the news site nrg.co.il and the Makor Rishon daily, released the footage on Feb. 15 from his excursion the previous week around Paris and its suburbs. Many anti-Semitic incidents occurred in the heavily Muslim suburb of Sarcelles, Klein told JTA, while Paris’ center was considerably calmer by comparison.
In one scene, a person wearing a black knit cap says “Jew” and walks alongside Klein, who was being filmed secretly by a colleague. In two separate incidents, one involving a man and one a woman, passers-by look in Klein’s direction as he walks past them.
In another part of Paris, passers-by call out “Vive Palestine” at him. In several cases, locals hurl profanities at Klein, calling him a homosexual and suggesting he had come to their neighborhood looking for sex.
The video, titled “10 Hours of Walking in Paris as a Jew,” was inspired by a video last year that shows Shoshana Roberts being sexually harassed repeatedly while walking in New York. Since it was published on YouTube, her video has registered more than 39 million views.
Anti-Semitic incidents recorded in France more than doubled in 2014 over the previous year, reaching a five-year-record of 851 instances.
