Kippah for Comfort

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  • #1739236
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Maybe someone’s kippah was just chosen because it was comfortable, not to make some sort of group affiliation.

    Someone might wear a leather kippah because it keeps one’s head warmer than a thin polyester one.

    Maybe someone wears a velvet kippah because it sits on one’s head more easily than other options.

    Why do people affiliate a kippah type with a particular group?

    #1739701
    Yabia Omer
    Participant

    Comfort is a valid and legitimate reason.

    #1739727
    yytz
    Participant

    Good point, Lightbright. I think people do choose kippas for those reasons, to some extent. For example, the stereotype is that charedi Jews always wear velvet (sometimes polyester instead), but a survey in Israel found that a sizable percentage (I don’t remember how much, perhaps 20%) of self-identified charedim wore knitted kippas (I assume black, but you never know…)

    #1739729
    Joseph
    Participant

    Are you suggesting that the fact that 99% of folks in Teaneck wear a much different yarmulka than folks in Kiryas Yoel is merely highly coincidental? Is it warmer in NY than in NJ?

    #1739813
    Yabia Omer
    Participant

    It’s not coincidental. It’s because of Khazar Meshugas.

    #1739814
    yytz
    Participant

    No, mostly people wear kippas because that’s the same kind of kippa everyone in the group they identify with wears. A partial exception is MO–some wear srugi, some leather, some velvet, etc.

    #1739965
    Yabia Omer
    Participant

    Why does a Kipa have to be an identifier? Why does one need to identify at all?

    #1739968
    Joseph
    Participant

    “It’s not coincidental. It’s because of Khazar Meshugas.”

    The Sephardic descendents of the Khazars don’t uniformly wear the same kippa.

    #1740255
    Yabia Omer
    Participant

    Only Ashkenazim were affected by the Khazar scourge. And yes Sephardim don’t uniformly wear same kipa because to do so is a neurosis that emanates from Central and Eastern Europe.

    #1740268
    Joseph
    Participant

    1. The Khazars melted into the Sephardic population. They also lived in a geographically Sephardic region of the world. Today’s Sephardim are a mix of the original Sephardim, the Khazars and the Eidah Hamizrach.

    2. On Isru Chag you call the Khazars a “scourge”. Yet on Erev Yom Tov you called them kosher geirim. How did you end up changing your mind over the last three days?

    #1740329
    Yabia Omer
    Participant

    I used the words “kosher Gerim”?

    #1740386
    Joseph
    Participant

    Following your krumme logic that Rashi, as an Ashkenazi, must’ve come from the Khazars, you retorted (direct quote of you:) “I wouldn’t respect Rashi less if he were a descendant of converts.” Thus implying that the Khazar converts were kosher geirim, not your new tune of today that they (and implicitly Rashi and the Baalei Tosfos too) are a “scourge”.

    P.S. The Rabad, Rav Avraham ibn Daud (a Sephardic godol), mentions encountering rabbinical students descended from Khazars in Toledo, Spain in the 1160s. Here’s a Sephardic source that clearly the Khazars merged into the Sephardic world. Hence you have no and can produce no evidence that they melted into the Ashkenazic world; only strong evidence that the Khazars melted into the Sephardic world.

    #1740391
    Gadolhadorah
    Participant

    If one was to start their own minhag and wear a Borseliono without a brim, would that be viewed as a NEW kipah? At some point, doesn’t a kipah made with feaux fur look like a shtreimlach that shrunk from the rain or is being worn by an ehrliche yid/animal rights machmir obsessed with tikun olam? It all depends on your perspective and that of the individual who may be trying to either identify with/distinguish himself from the local tzibur.

    #1740448
    MDG
    Participant

    “Here’s a Sephardic source that clearly the Khazars merged into the Sephardic world.”

    Not really a source except for a few.
    Anyways, I was reading about Jewish genetic geneolgy on Wikipedia this morning, before looking at this thread.
    It said that there are basically no genetic links from Jews to the Khazars.

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