Joining the recent trend of covertly documenting anti-Semitic abuse, an Egyptian journalist dressed as an ultra-Orthodox Jew walked the streets of Cairo earlier this week to gauge the public’s reaction. And it wasn’t all bad.
The Egyptian news website DOTMSR sent out a reporter wearing traditional hassidic dress — complete with a kippah, sidecurls, a (very obviously fake) beard and hat — to ask locals for directions to the “Jewish synagogue.”
The reporter later took off the beard and hat, remaining with the kippah, and repeated the experiment.
The responses varied. While some Egyptians ignored the two “Jews,” others greeted them with anti-Semitic slurs, threats of violence and shoving.
At one point, the “ultra-Orthodox” reporter was surrounded by a group of two dozen young men and boys who began to push him around, demanding he “get out of here.”
Other incidents of hostility, mild violence and brief scuffles were also shown in the short clip.
When the journalist walked around looking for the synagogue sans beard and sidecurls, passersby seemed to be less hostile.
The reporter told one man straight out that he was Jewish and was told: “You are the best [people].”
Another man, asked to look at a piece of paper where the presumed address of the synagogue was written, asked the journalist if what he was looking at was Hebrew and then if the man in front of him was Israeli. When the journalist answered “yes,” the man hurriedly walked away.
One Egyptian man advised the journalist to put the paper with Hebrew writing on it away and not show it to anyone, presumably in an effort to protect him.
The clip, uploaded to the website’s Facebook page on Wednesday, was heavily edited, making the exact sequence of events unclear.
The experiment came on the heels of several other projects by a number of journalists who have taken to the streets of major European cities wearing kippahs to document anti-Semitic abuse firsthand.
In January, a reporter wearing a kippah walked around the heavily Muslim Malmo, Sweden, where he was assaulted and cursed at.
Then, in February, an Orthodox Jewish journalist walking through the streets of Paris was taunted and intimidated, as shown in an online video.
However, the worst report of anti-Semitic abuse directed at kippah-wearing journalist was in the UK. Jonathan Kalmus, a Jewish journalist for the Daily Mail, reported that he “encountered anti-Semitism for nothing but walking in a street.” In Bradford and Manchester, he was spat at, and heard slurs including “Fight the Jewish scum,” and “Jew, Jew, Jew… Run.”
