A man wearing a kippah Photo: Enough is Enough Facebook page.

An Italian newspaper distributed white yarmulkes with its daily edition on Wednesday as a show of solidarity with Jewish communities in Europe on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“We intended it as a gesture of closeness and solidarity with the Jewish people, now that antisemitism is getting stronger in Europe and that many Jews are abandoning our cities,” said Giulio Meotti, a writer for Il Foglio, according to The Jewish Voice.

Meotti noted that many Jews in Europe have stopped donning the traditional Jewish skullcap out of fear of antisemitism. In Marseilles earlier this month, following an attack against a Jewish schoolteacher outside his Hebrew school, the local community head called on locals to refrain from putting on the kippah, a suggestion that drew condemnations from others in the French and international Jewish communities.

“Hatred of Israel has returned to dominate the media and politics,” said Meotti, according to the Voice. “Anti-Semitism does not shock anymore. But we must pay attention. Because they start by hitting the Jews but they do not stop there: we are all in danger.”

The initiative by Il Foglio Editor-in-Chief Claudio Cerasa, followed French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia’s call on Jews to wear kippot in order to show a “united front” against antisemitism, especially in the wake of recent attacks. Simultaneously, an online campaign was launched under the hashtag  #TousAvecUneKippa, also calling for individuals to wear kippot as a sign of solidarity. In addition, Strasbourg Chabad Rabbi Mendel Samama handed out 100 kippot to passersby in the city’s center around the same time.

“Solidarity is the only weapon we have. That little kippah is the symbol of our greatest and most precious freedoms. And of Israel, the outpost that Europe should defend and love,” said Meotti.