Monday, February 16, 2015

He Walked Around Paris ‘as a Jew’ for 10 Hours — the Reality Caught on Video Is Hard to Stomach



He Walked Around Paris ‘as a Jew’ for 10 Hours — the Reality Caught on Video Is Hard to Stomach

While walking quietly through the streets of Paris wearing a yarmulke, Zvika Klein claims to have experienced the shocking amount of discrimination and intimidation that Jews can experience on a daily basis.
With a photographer walking in front of him with a GoPro camera hidden on his backpack, Klein says an array of insults and hostile stares were hurled in his direction because he was perceived as a Jew.
“He came here to f*** from the front and the back,” one person reportedly said.
“Viva Palestine!” another shouted.
“Hey you, with the kippa (yarmulke), what are you doing here?” yet another individual remarked.
Writing for NRG.co.il, Klein revealed details of his shocking experience:
Welcome to Paris 2015, where soldiers are walking every street that houses a Jewish institution, and where keffiyeh-wearing men and veiled women speak Arabic on every street corner. Walking down one Parisian suburb, I was asked what I doing there. In modern-day Paris, you see, Jews are barred from entering certain areas.
[…]
For 10 hours I quietly walked down the streets and suburbs of Paris, with photographer Dov Belhassen documenting the day using a GoPro camera hidden in his backpack. Given the tensions in Paris, which is still reeling from a wave of terrorist attacks (including the murder of Charlie Hebdo magazine journalists), I was assigned a bodyguard.
Areas known as tourist attractions were relatively calm, but the further from them we walked, the more anxious I became over the hateful stares, the belligerent remarks, and the hostile body language.
Klein and his crew later walked through “mostly Muslim neighborhoods” and the presence of a “Jew” was reportedly met with stunning anti-Semitism.
(YouTube)
(YouTube)
At one point, Klein claims a little boy saw them and asked his mother, “What is he doing here, Mommy? Doesn’t he know he will be killed?”
Concluding his account of the experiment, Klein wrote: “Is this what life is like for Paris’ Jews? Is this what a Jew goes through, day in and day out, while walking to work or using public transportation? The majority of French Jews do not flaunt their religion, as the Jewish community leaders have urged them to wear hats as they walk to and from work, or go bareheaded. But what about nighttime? Well, Jews prefers to stay inside in the evening. It is safer at home.

No comments: