Twitter Campaign Calls on All of France to Wear Kippot

During a time of racial tension in France, many people used Twitter to support a social media campaign that encouraged people to wear the Jewish kippa. The hashtag #TousAvecUneKippa was seen on Twitter with photoshopped images of public figures wearing the kippa. Notable figures included Brad Pitt and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The social media campaign has gained popularity due to the recent attacks that have discouraged local Jews. This has been a controversial topic with very mixed feedback from the community. Tzvi Ammar, president of the local office of the Consistoire, the French Jewish community’s organization responsible for religious services, said that Jews should “remove the kippa during these troubled times” because “the preservation of life is sacrosanct.” In contrast, Michele Teboul, president of the local branch of CRIF – an umbrella group that represents French Jewish communities politically as a lobby – told JTA that she “could not support a measure which dials back hundreds of years during which Jews were able to practice their faiths and live freely as citizens of the French Republic.”

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