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The former "House of Cards" star, who has recently faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, arrived in Israel to visit a friend who was sitting shiva (the traditional seven-day mourning period following the death of a family member) in Jerusalem.

The actor was seen wearing a kippah during his shiva visit, but later took the kippah off when he dined at the Tel Aviv restaurant Coco BamBino.

Spacey is just one of a number of celebrities who have visited the Jewish state over the past few weeks, among them Demi Lovato and popular Eurovision contestant Mahmoud. Spacey's legal cases have been closed, but he has been fired from "House of Cards" and has remained a source of controversy.

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The first incident occurred in the city of Dusseldorf on Monday evening when unidentified assailants followed Rabbi Chaim Barkahn in the street and called him a "Jewish pig."

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"It was a very, very terrible moment," Barkahn told the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur, adding it was his first such experience in the city where he has lived and served the Jewish community for 18 years.

"Unfortunately, I can now say I don't feel safe anymore in Düsseldorf as a Jew. But I am hoping for better times," he said.

On Sunday night in Berlin, a 20-year-old man, who was also wearing a kippah, said perpetrators tried to spit on him.

Both incidents are being investigated, JTA reported.

In late May, days after Germany's anti-Semitism czar lamented that Jews would be ill-advised to wear kippot in public because of anti-Semitism in the country, one of the nation's leading dailies printed a "do-it-yourself kippah" cutout on its front page, as an act of solidarity with the Jewish community.

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Ahead of the publication, which occupied about a quarter of the front page, Editor-in-Chief Julian Reichelt wrote: "If only one person in our country cannot carry [a] kippah without endangering himself, the answer can only be that we all wear a kippah. The kippah belongs to Germany!"

In an open letter printed next to the cutout, Reichelt called on Germans to embrace their Jewish compatriots. The online site of the paper also included a video of how to cut out the paper kippah.

The gesture came in reaction to anti-Semitism commissioner Felix Klein's interview from Saturday, in which he warned that it was probably too risky to wear a kippah in public.

"My opinion has unfortunately changed compared with what it used to be on the matter," Klein said. "I cannot recommend to Jews that they wear the skullcap at all times everywhere in Germany."

He did not elaborate on when and where he thought doing so might be risky.

The remark has drawn mixed reactions in Germany and in Israel.

President Reuven Rivlin said on Sunday that he was "shocked" by the statement.

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The proposed law sets the province's right-leaning Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government on a collision course with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who promotes religious freedom, in a federal election year with Quebec a vital battleground.

"It is unthinkable to me that in a free society we would legitimize discrimination against citizens based on their religion," Trudeau told reporters in Halifax on Thursday.

The legislation, which is expected to pass, will cover public workers in positions of authority, including teachers, judges and police officers. It exempts current government employees and civil servants in the mainly French-speaking province.

Governments in Quebec have been trying for years to restrict civil servants from wearing overt religious symbols like headscarves and Jewish kippot at work in an effort to cement a secular society.

A ban on full face coverings on anyone giving or receiving public services in Quebec passed in 2017, but was suspended by a Canadian judge last June and remains in legal limbo.

The CAQ was elected late last year in part on pledges to restrict immigration and impose a secular charter. Quebec Premier François Legault told reporters on Thursday the bill "represents our values and it's important."

But condemnation was quick, with Jewish advocacy group B'nai B'rith calling the bill "an assault on the fundamental rights and freedoms of Quebecers," while the National Council of Canadian Muslims said it will make Muslims and other minorities "second-class citizens" and overwhelmingly impact Muslim women.

Like France, which passed a ban on veils, crosses and other religious symbols in schools in 2004, Quebec has struggled to reconcile its secular identity with a growing Muslim population, many of them North African emigrants.

While the Quebec legislation does not single out any religion by name, Muslim headwear has long been a source of public debate in Quebec.

Quebec's minister for the status of women drew condemnation from opposition politicians earlier this year after she said the hijab is a symbol of female oppression.

And a Montreal-area municipal politician faced backlash this weekend after she wrote a Facebook post expressing her anger over being treated by a doctor wearing a hijab, calling the headscarf a symbol of the "Islamification of our country."

To shield the new legislation from legal challenges, the Quebec government is invoking a rarely used clause that enables it to override the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom for up to five years.

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