Kippot on sale in France (file).
Kippot on sale in France (file).Serge Attal / Flash 90

An Italian newspaper will be making a touching and brave gesture against anti-Semitism on Wednesday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Il Foglio, under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Claudio Cerasa, decided to take the unprecedented step of giving each of its readers a small white kippah on this day.

"We intended it as a gesture of closeness and solidarity with the Jewish people, now that anti-Semitism is getting stronger in Europe and that many Jews are abandoning our cities," explained Giulio Meotti, who writes for the newspaper and is a regular Arutz Sheva columnist, noting that this year there has been a boom year for Aliyah from Europe.

"From Marseilles to Milan, many Jews in Europe today have chosen to stop wearing the kippah in public," he explained. "They do it for personal safety or because some leaders of Jewish communities asked them to do so. They hide all symbols of their Jewish identity.

"Hatred of Israel has returned to dominate the media and politics," he stated sadly. "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.

"So what could we do? 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.