Most recently, I was loping home from Dunkin’ Donuts with my afternoon coffee when a voice from behind called, “Hello, sir.” Even as I turned to answer I knew why the college-age woman was addressing me as “sir.” No one does that unless he wants to question me about my religious headgear. The stranger approached and asked me if I knew Hebrew. When I told her I did, she handed me her portable CD player and asked if I would explain the lyrics of a song to her. I gamely put on the headphones and translated the alternative-rock band Phish’s version of a traditional Jewish prayer, but I drew the line when the woman asked me if she could inspect my yarmulke closer.
The strangest incident occurred when I made a late-night Store 24 run in college. As I paid for my soda, the multipierced clerk said, “Can you get those things”–he nodded to my yarmulke–“in leather?” I stammered, “I guess,” and he continued: “How about one with spikes and chains?” I collected my change and left, quickly.
So why do I wear it? I have my stock answer, well rehearsed in Jewish day school–“It reminds us that God is above us”–but this level of piety is one I have long since abandoned. In truth, there is no single reason. I wear it mostly to signal that Jewish law and custom pervade my life and world view. I do it because many of my friends do, and I feel most comfortable in my religious community when I follow suit. I keep it on because permanently removing my yarmulke after all this time seems like a profound statement. I do it because I don’t have a Jewish-sounding name to identify my religion and ethnicity. Wearing my yarmulke also reminds me to treat people with kindness–to give change to panhandlers, and inform the waitress she made an error on my behalf in tallying my check.
The knitted disc I wear on my head can easily mislead those who think they know what it stands for. I am not politically conservative or theologically right wing. I do not consider myself Orthodox, though I share many practices, beliefs and customs with Orthodox Jews. Donning my yarmulke each day is a personal choice too complicated to articulate to strangers or friends. It is an act that I had always wished would not come to define me. Unfortunately, when people see my yarmulke, they believe they know something essential about me.
I believe it would be no different for those I come in contact with through my work. I’m an editor for a religion-based Web site. Though most people assume it would be safe to advertise my religion on the job, whenever I’ve been in journalist mode I’ve opted not to wear my yarmulke. (Though I now work at home, I often leave my home office, sans yarmulke, to conduct interviews, attend conferences or spend time in my company’s main office.) I worry that, in such a setting, Jews and non-Jews alike will assume they know my opinions and world view based on my headgear. Worse yet, I worry they will not want to talk to a journalist they believe to be right wing, fanatic, fundamentalist or close-minded–take your pick of the stereotype. I recognize that such worries may be based more on my fears than reality, but professionally, at least, I am not ready to test the bounds of America’s tolerance.
A Roman Catholic friend recently described her first experience wearing ash on Ash Wednesday. She was conscious every minute of that day that she was broadcasting her belief system on her forehead. That is how I feel every time I walk into a subway car or supermarket with my yarmulke on.
Another friend, this one an observant Jew, feels bad that she cannot wear a yarmulke regularly (most observant women do not). She believes that if she were male, she would never take her yarmulke off. I doubt that, but she insists. I realize, though, that someone without an analogous situation cannot truly understand what it means to be labeled every minute of every day. With a yarmulke on my head, whatever I do or say is viewed by others through the lens of “Jew.” I struggle with religion and morality as much as anyone, and by advertising my religion so explicitly those struggles–as well as my shortcomings–stand out more than they do for a bareheaded Jew. There are times, especially at work, when I want to avoid that sort of filtering system.
Usually, though, off duty as a journalist and willing to answer the queries of strangers, I can be found wearing a small, blue disc on my head, affixed with two bobby pins. And when I do, I am on guard for the next stranger to stop and ask whether I am a rabbi, know a good kosher deli or can explain why Jews don’t believe in Jesus.
