11/6/2023 0 Comments Klipped kippahs black suedeI go to the kosher grocery stores and I long to look just like the other women. Fully fitting into to an observant Jewish life is impossible when you are me.Īs much as I hesitate to admit it, I want to fit in. It logically follows that being part of a community is necessary for maintaining Jewish observance, but what often goes unsaid is that it is almost as vital to fit in to that community.Īn inconvenient truth: Fitting in is hard when you are me. I embrace being part of many different communities, but it is certainly not without difficulty. This fluidity has become necessary as a gay, leftist, academic, frum Jew, the boundaries of my personhood spill between spaces. I float between many communities: my liberal, incredibly queer school my Orthodox synagogue the Conservative rabbinical school I just applied to. However, this is where the kippah becomes complicated. I think there is comfort in being visually identified with your community. I prefer the translation of tzniut as “dignity”: Is my outfit dignifying myself? While I don’t care what people think about me (for the most part), I have come to realize the all-importance of the image in religious Judaism. In addition to covering certain parts of my body, I think consciously about what message my clothing is sending to the world. Tzniut, or modesty, has become an important value as my religiosity has increased. Again, my Judaism at the time was still fairly de-gendered, so the association between kippot and religious Judaism went unquestioned despite being a woman. It made sense, too, to begin full-time kippah wearing as I became more involved with Jewish observance. I’ve long been accustomed to cover my head when praying, so it made sense to have my head covered at all times for impromptu blessing making. Of course, there were the religious aspects as well. I liked being visibly identifiable as Jewish to all, and I found comfort in reaching up to feel the saucer-sized fabric in my thick curls. I wonder that too, sometimes.įor the most part, I adored my kippah-covered head. This change is recent enough to be visible from a scroll though my Facebook profile pictures - sometimes I wonder if people stalking my page wonder what happened to me. Peering into a closet of mid-calf length skirts, it’s hard to believe I ever wore shorts. I often have a hard time recognizing myself in pictures that are only a handful of years old. Much has changed in the two and a half years since I began wearing a kippah full-time: Namely, I’ve become more religious. It’s also true, though, that gender was never a consideration factor in my Jewish practice until quite recently. Even most of my halakhic egalitarian friends have avoided wearing one, being unable to shake the connection to masculinity. It seems to surprise everyone that I never associated wearing a kippah with gender. Little did I know then that I would eventually take my kippah off in realizing my failure to represent myself to the Jewish people. This was a time to replete with pure excitement: I cherished the weight of being seen as a religious Jew in my town where many people have never even met one, proud of this responsibility I would now carry to be an honorable representation of the Jewish people. Before hitching a shared cab back to the Ben Gurion Airport, I clipped a colorful crocheted kippah into my hair and proudly shared pictures of my new sartorial status to my friends. After spending two months in yeshiva where I covered my head during classes (which is to say, nearly all day), I was so accustomed to wearing a kippah that I couldn’t imagine going back to a bare head. I began full-time kippah wearing at the conclusion of the summer of 2016. It occurs to me that I don’t remember which was the last I wore, my kippah collection now in the dozens. The last time I wore a kippah was only a few weeks ago, nearly two decades after I got my first.
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