Jewish headwear

[Li_l_Pluck]

Just popping in to say that it would be, umm…nice if folks would realize that there’s actually a 4th branch of Judaism that is referred to as Reconstructionist (we’ve been around for awhile now). (The Hasidim, as I understand it, are actually a part of that big and varid tent of Orthodox Judaism, so the four branches of Judaism would be Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist.)

As for the rest of my $.02:

In my shul, people tend to wear varying kinds of headwear, ranging from kippot (the plural of kippah) to Muslim-style kufis to those pillbox thingies mentioned somewhere upthread (though kippot and kufis tend to be prevalent). My shul also provides those satin or velor yarmulkes, but people who wear them tend to be either visitors or members who don’t ordinarily wear a head covering outside of shul or some other observance.

I wear a kippah serugah (it’s a knitted kippah that’s usually associated with modern Orthodox Jews–in fact, you might hear a modern Orthodox Jew referred to as a “kippah serugah”–though I am not Orthodox) because it’s comfortable and it lies flush with my skull, unlike those satin or velour yarmulkes that stick up so unattractively that some people wear.

Rare is the occasion when I don’t have my kippah on in public. When I come home from work/school and change clothes, I do take it off and leave it off until I either go back out or say the shema before bed. (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to find it later on and have torn the apartment apart, only to find it balled up with the t-shirt that I’d doffed earlier–y’know, from pulling the shirt up over my head.) I also don’t wear it if I know I’m going to be somewhere where I might eat something treif (not kosher), but that’s not often when I’m up north. When I go back home to South Carolina, though, it more often than not resides in my back pocket, 'cause I already know what the deal with eating is going to be (I come from a devoutly pork-eating family, and it’s not always ultra-important for me to keep kosher outside of my home. Mostly, but not always.). Oh, and when I fly, not so much (Black man + skullcap + wariness–perhaps irrational, perhaps not–of profiling mishegoss = no kippah for me). Oh, and when I go out to a bar where I might remove my outer hat (I always wear a regular hat outdoors), I take it off. (Gay bar + guy in a kippah = very interesting reactions.) As for sex, what the hell is that?

I’m not bald (and thanks to my genes, I probably never will be), so (that’s one reason why) I don’t use bobby pins to secure my kippah. One of the other reasons is that I don’t let my hair grow long enough where using bobby pins would be possible (I tend towards a military-style haircut). Though this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a product marketed specifically for use with kippot (Kipon, which someone else mentioned), I do use (and have used for many years) regular velcro in order to secure my kippah to my head. I just get some adhesive-backed velcro (the prickly side–I think they call it the “hook” side), cut it into four small rectangles (for better coverage–y’know, one for each directional, N-E-S-W), stick it to the underside of the kippah, and I’m ready to go.

So, yeah, that’s my $.02. Or $2, considering the length of this damn post.

–Li’l Pluck, proud Reconstructionist Jew who thinks that perhaps we ought to market ourselves better so that people will realize that we exist.

[Broomstick]

Li’l Pluck, I am thinking that, as a black man, your hair is a different texture than that of many Jews of more Caucasian background which could affect how well a skullcap stays on your head. My father, for instance, has hair I suspect grows out teflon-coated, NOTHING sticks to it, it’s sort of like anti-velcro. If his side of the family didn’t use bobby pins I suspect not a single yarmulke would remain in place, or else they’d spend their lives running around with one hand clamped to their head to keep it in place. Which makes me wonder if some Jewish groups incline toward full hats due to the problems of keep those yarmulke’s in place on slippery hair shafts.

[Li_l_Pluck]

@Broomstick

Li’l Pluck, I am thinking that, as a black man, your hair is a different texture than that of many Jews of more Caucasian background which could affect how well a skullcap stays on your head. My father, for instance, has hair I suspect grows out teflon-coated, NOTHING sticks to it, it’s sort of like anti-velcro. If his side of the family didn’t use bobby pins I suspect not a single yarmulke would remain in place, or else they’d spend their lives running around with one hand clamped to their head to keep it in place. Which makes me wonder if some Jewish groups incline toward full hats due to the problems of keep those yarmulke’s in place on slippery hair shafts.

Good question re slippery hair + recalcitrant kippot = move towards full hats, necessity being the mother and all that.

Nature didn’t give me typical Black hair (i.e., “nappy”), but it also didn’t imbue me with European hair, either. It’s actually some kind of whatever-the-hell-it-is mixture (but definitely more “black” than anything else), but it looks as if it might tolerate bobby pins if I were to let it grow long enough.

The first guy I saw who used velcro (and from whom I got the idea), was of European descent. I doubt if he’d have gone out into the wind like that, but he said it worked well enough for him.

You know those silver clip thingies? I’ve seen people use them (mostly with knit kippot), and they seem to work well.

[Anne_Neville]

@Broomstick

My father, for instance, has hair I suspect grows out teflon-coated, NOTHING sticks to it, it’s sort of like anti-velcro. If his side of the family didn’t use bobby pins I suspect not a single yarmulke would remain in place, or else they’d spend their lives running around with one hand clamped to their head to keep it in place.

I have this problem, too.

@DocCathode

According to Sol The Answer Man (author of Do They Keep Kosher On Mars?), a toupee is acceptable.

But by doing so, you would be implicitly admitting that the toupee isn’t your natural hair. If someone saw you in services without a kippah, thought your toupee was natural, and reminded you that you should be wearing a hat, you would have to admit to them that you were wearing a toupee.

@C K Dexter Haven

Just as an aside, for Conservative Jews, there’s a wide range of practice. Many Conservative rabbis follow Orthodox traditions on when to cover their heads. For the rest of us, we cover our heads only when engaged in prayer or (religious) study, or when in a synagogue.

Some Conservative women, like me and my mother-in-law, also cover our heads in those circumstances. Non-Jewish women visiting a Conservative synagogue probably wouldn’t be expected to do so, though. Non-Jewish men visiting would, and a bin of yarmulkes is almost always provided outside the door to the sanctuary. If you borrow a yarmulke from one of these bins, put it back when you leave.

If a Conservative couple is getting married in a synagogue (sometimes when they are being married somewhere else), male guests will probably be asked to wear yarmulkes. The couple will buy yarmulkes in quantity, usually in some color that at least coordinates with the wedding colors and usually with the couple’s name and the date printed inside the yarmulkes. The ushers will usually give them out to male guests as they come in for the ceremony. Guests can keep these as favors. The couple usually expects them to do that- what are they going to do with 200 yarmulkes with their names and wedding date inside them?

I donated a few of ours to the yarmulke bin at our synagogue- if you look at the yarmulkes in those bins, you will see quite a few with inscriptions from somebody’s wedding or bar or bat mitzvah. I felt like I was marking our synagogue as my territory when I did that…

@L'il Pluck

Gay bar + guy in a kippah = very interesting reactions.

Some of our Israel guidebooks recommended not wearing a kippah when you might be dealing with Muslims in Israel, especially if you go somewhere like the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem. They recommended putting on a baseball cap over it if you couldn’t stand the idea of not wearing it. Jewish law certainly wouldn’t endorse wearing a kippah if doing so would put you in danger of death or serious injury (say, if you were going somewhere where you might be beaten up if you were identifiably Jewish)- the laws explicitly say all but the laws forbidding murder, adultery, and idolatry are set aside in those circumstances.

My mother-in-law and I visited an Orthodox synagogue in Israel, just to have a look around while we were on our way to a Conservative synagogue for Friday night services. We didn’t wear our yarmulkes while we were there- we didn’t think that would go over particularly well.

[Scuba_Ben]

@GingerOfTheNorth

That YMMV - what’s that line? Ask four Rabbis, get five answers?

You’re undercounting, Ginger. The line is: Two Jews, three opinions. (Frequently, the opinions are mutually exclusive and all correct.)

My understanding is that the custom originated in the Roman era. Servitors kept their heads covered, while freemen enjoyed bare heads. The custom arose that to show that Jews are servitors of the Divine, we keep our heads covered in His Presence.

Wikipedia ho… The article does not support my understanding, though it has a good discussion of the history and religious law.

[MsRobyn]

@Anne Neville

If a Conservative couple is getting married in a synagogue (sometimes when they are being married somewhere else), male guests will probably be asked to wear yarmulkes. The couple will buy yarmulkes in quantity, usually in some color that at least coordinates with the wedding colors and usually with the couple’s name and the date printed inside the yarmulkes. The ushers will usually give them out to male guests as they come in for the ceremony. Guests can keep these as favors. The couple usually expects them to do that- what are they going to do with 200 yarmulkes with their names and wedding date inside them?

The yarmulke bin at the synagogue I went to as a child had few, if any, that didn’t come from someone’s bar/bat mitzvah or wedding. They were a lovely rainbow of colors and a historical reminder of the happy events celebrated there.

Robin