Our Hats: The Kippah and Jewish Survivability

By Ron Barzilay

"I, a relatively secular Jew who blends in with the rest of my UC Berkeley peers, and the Hasid who wears a black suit, payot, and a big satin hat, are both Jews."

The closing act of Fiddler on the Roof, the 1971 musical film, sees Tevye—the father of a Jewish family living in a Russian shtetl in the early-twentieth century—forced out of his home by Czarist pogroms, and on a boat to America. Within emotional conversations with God, Tevye copes with adapting to modern social values that conflict with the traditions he strictly adheres to. Amongst countless audiences, this serves as the perfect musical encapsulation of Judaism’s journey to America. For Judaism to survive through assimilation and antisemitism, many newly immigrated American Jews needed to question their traditions. The religion changed in a multitude of ways; I, a young Jewish college student, look almost nothing like the Orthodox Jew living in a shtetl in the early 1900s. So, what were the consequences of making Judaism more survivable? Did Jews lessen their connection to God in order for Judaism to survive in the United States? A powerful case study for these questions can be found (or critically, not found) on the top of a Jewish person’s head.

The kippah (in Hebrew), yarmulke (in Yiddish), or skull-cap, is a head-covering traditionally worn by Jewish men. It was widely adopted by Jewish men in the 15th century when Rabbi Israel Bruna declared male bare headedness a violation of religious law. Unlike a prayer book or the celebration of the Sabbath, a kippah is visible, making it unmistakably signal that its wearer is Jewish. Due to its synonymy with Judaism and its public nature, head-covering was one of the traditions most susceptible to change. Personally, I have never worn a kippah outside of synagogue nor even thought about doing so, even though I’m sure that my forefathers did. So, how did the kippah change upon its arrival to America, and why? Did those changes dilute the Jewish faith? Jews’ acculturation to the United States did alter the head-covering tradition, in terms of the physical kippah, rabbinical and legal opinion on the practice, and the day-to-day choice to wear a kippah. While these compromises on the strict maintenance of the kippah-wearing practice represent a dilution of Judaism to some and organic evolutions to others, they ultimately did not make the Jewish faith inauthentic. Rather, Jewish identity in America expanded to fit multiple interpretations of the tradition.

How America Changed the Kippah

Over five million Jews immigrated from Russia, Poland, and Germany to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pushed out by nationalism, revolutions, overpopulation, oppressive legislation, antisemitism, pogroms, and poverty. Even though religious pluralism is a fundamental characteristic of American culture, immigrants’ spiritual practices — while not disappearing completely — gradually trend towards conformity in the United States.

The kippah’s evolution in America began with its physical form, where differing levels of acculturation by distinctive Jewish sects induced variations in the kippah’s construction. Traditional Orthodox (sometimes known as Hasidic) Jews heavily resisted assimilation and most closely reflected the Eastern European Jewish immigrants that arrived at the turn of the 20th century. To them, any small kippah denotes diminished religious commitment, so they typically wear large black hats over a small kippah. Modern Orthodox Jews, as a compromise between ultra-Orthodox hats and total bareheadedness, gradually turned to wearing small and colorful kippahs. This change made the kippah more subtle and fashionable while preserving tradition. Conservative and Reform Jews, who mostly reserved head-covering for services alone, could borrow plain suede or single-use kippahs from communal baskets in synagogues. This allowed them to appear more like their non-Jewish neighbors by removing the responsibility of wearing a kippah regularly or even owning one. With the exception of Hasidic Jews’ head-coverings, the content lining a kippah’s fabric also changed in response to Americanization. Modern kippahs in America often feature references to sports teams, cartoon characters, universities, and other cultural symbols, weakening the barrier between the sacred and the profane. When a head-covering blends in with the t-shirts, backpacks, and posters of the time, it sticks out less, easing the assimilation process. By and large, the physical kippah evolved, explaining how kippahs can range from black and velvet to Pikachu-themed.

Image courtesy of Chabad.org

For a majority of immigrants, Americanization surpassed any religious obligation: maintaining a kosher diet, celebrating the Sabbath, and wearing a kippah daily. While head-coverings in outdoor spaces were typical in the first half of the 20th century, problems arose indoors, where bareheadedness was the norm. American Jews often took off their head-coverings out of respect to their non-Jewish colleagues. Similar problems arose for young Jewish boys and teenagers who did not have the same expectation to wear hats outdoors. These young men, because of the kippah’s immediate connection to Judaism, put themselves at risk of mockery and even physical violence for deviating from the American standard. American assimilation pushed many Jews to change their opinion on wearing a kippah through socialization and societal expectations. Kippahs only returned for Orthodox Jews a generation later, as the children who grew up without the trauma of immigration, major Anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust felt far more comfortable walking the streets of America with kippahs. Nonetheless, public-stigmas about kippahs altered the practices of non-Orthodox sects beyond that era.

How the Kippah Changed American Judaism

Some Jewish leaders, especially the more traditional and orthodox, reasonably believed that changes to the kippah-wearing practice represented dilutions of the Jewish faith. If keeping one’s head covered exhibited piety and a physical connection to God, efforts to diminish, hide, or outright remove the kippah would logically lessen the spiritual experience for American Jews. Some Jewish leaders, often non-Orthodox, viewed changes to the kippah-wearing practice as necessary and organic evolutions to the Jewish faith. While Hasidic Jews perceived shrinking head-coverings as an effort to diminish religious commitment, Modern Orthodox Jews disagreed. Their smaller, often knitted and colorful kippahs allowed them to fulfill their religious duty while further assimilating. Conservative Jews similarly did not regard their choice to reserve head-covering for only religious acts as an undermining of tradition. Rather, it was a necessary adaptation of the tradition that let Jews cover their heads when it was spiritually most critical, but not during their day-to-day profane existence. Reform Jews who doffed head-coverings altogether surmised that these practices prevented integration into general society; to them, that was antithetical to universal aspects of Judaism. This line of thought did not deny that head-covering had historical significance for the Jewish people but drew on the broader Jewish ideal that encourages unity with non-Jews. Once again, this choice was not an active effort to dilute the faith. Some segments of American Jewry simply saw Jewish survivability as more imperative than strict tradition.

How Can They Both Be Right?

Without their hats, did Jews preserve the faith that their forefathers passed on? Some Jewish authorities think bare headedness signifies a diluted Jewish faith, while others believe that a modernized American Judaism with adjusted head-covering practices is still authentic Judaism. The American Hasidic Jew would likely argue that Jews who took off the kippah did dilute the Jewish faith because he believes that a bare head is immoral. The American Reform Jew would say that strict head-covering is an antiquated line of thought, and he is not any less Jewish for choosing not to wear a kippah. A quandry, that in classic Jewish fashion, seemingly ends with two right answers (just like in Fiddler on the Roof): he is right, and he is right. How can they both be right? Who is the real judge? The truth is that no judge exists, and the notion of what Judaism is in America is decidedly unclear. Judaism’s journey to the United States is much better characterized as an expansion than a dilution, as the perception of who a Jew is and what a Jew does has expanded to fit far more conceptions than those who came off of boats at the turn of the 19th century. I, a relatively secular Jew who blends in with the rest of my UC Berkeley peers, and the Hasid who wears a black suit, payot, and a big satin hat, are both Jews. Importantly, in the context of American pluralism, we are all equally valid Jews. And although that equal validity can conflict, we all coexist. The kippah is one of the most visible, clear symbols for this phenomenon; what is atop a Jewish person’s head does not reveal how much our religion has been diluted, but rather how it evolved.

A special thank you to my professor who helped me greatly in developing this piece and the research surrounding it, Becky Hsu.