Sefardic Rabbonim's Hats

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  • This topic has 45 replies, 22 voices, and was last updated 9 years ago by MDG.
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  • #598516
    Hacham
    Member

    When were the Sefardic Rabbonim of our generation mekabel to wear the headgear (hat) styles of the Ashkenazic Rabbonim. Today the Sefardic Rabbonim (from Chacham Ovadia Yosef shlit”a on) wear the Ashkenazic style black hats. The Sefardic Bnei Torah wear the same. The Sefardic Rabbonim always wore some headgear, but until roughly 50 or 60 years ago they wore some uniquely Sefardic style of head coverings. What prompted the change?

    P.S. I think it is beautiful that all the Bnei Torah these days wear similar headgear, so I am not complaining c”v. I just am curious as to what the reason for the change was.

    #1101399
    ItcheSrulik
    Member

    Probably because many Sefardic rabanim were trained in Ashkenazic yeshivos.

    #1101400
    Hacham
    Member

    ItcheSrulik: I don’t think that is applicable to Chacham Ovadia Yosef shlit”a and others. It seems that it must be more than that.

    #1101401
    MDG
    Participant

    Social pressure.

    #1101402
    apushatayid
    Participant

    I asked the Rav of a small sefardi minyan why he wears a black felt fedora. His response, they didn’t have many other options at the Hat Box.

    #1101403
    shlishi
    Member

    Rav Ovadia Yosef wears an “uphat”, similar to many Chasidim and Litvishe Rabbonim.

    #1101404
    charvona
    Member

    A better question is when anyone was mekabel these hats – if you look a photographs just 50 or 100 years ago many gedolim and rabbonim wore other hats including gray. In fact, if you look at the film of the prior Lubavitcher rebbe most men were wearing gray

    #1101405
    Obaminator
    Member

    They always wore a hat.

    #1101406
    shein
    Member

    The Sefardic Gedolim, Rabbonim, and Bnei Torah changed to it because today it is the uniform of Bnei Torah.

    #1101407
    Toi
    Participant

    I think because the askenazic yeshivos are the majority and more mainstream, the sephardi bnei torah want to feel part of that bigger whole so they adopted the “yeshivish” mode of dress. It also looks more bakovodik today then a turban

    #1101408
    shev143
    Member

    Ashkenazi, Sefaradi, or Hasidic, in the end we all still wear what the Europeans began as a style then for themselves.

    #1101409
    twisted
    Participant

    Rashi’s hat: Rashi and other rishonim describe the top of a ruminant trachea as the “shipui kova, sitting “like a hat on the siman, a roughly pentagonal structure and surely not black. In a better connection, in Hullin 48b, Rashi explains the bais hakosos as “at the end of the stomach, looking like a hat”. I will have to check on that in Sichos Hullin, but I am fairly certain it is not shaped quite like a fedora.

    #1101410
    metrodriver
    Member

    Twisted; Interestingly. Rash”i and the Ramba”m are portrayed wearing some form of a Turban, and not necessarily black. (Gray or light Brown.)I’m curious to know when the Napoleonic hats came into style. Just speculating. In the era of the Renaissance.

    #1101411
    shev143
    Member

    Why is it permitted to wear a hat/strimel if it was the Levush/ style of the Goyim?

    #1101412
    oyveykidsthesedays
    Participant

    shev: because now it’s not.

    #1101413
    shein
    Member

    I never saw a goy wear a shtreimel. And I doubt they ever did in the past wear one in the form that yidden wear it. And even if they did, it is now certainly a yiddishe levush, irregardless of the past.

    #1101414
    shev143
    Member

    Shein(sheltered)?, obviously you have not been to or even seen photos of Europeans (British, Russian).

    So we are allowed to follow non-Jewish styles of dress, as long the style is no longer common by the non-Jews?

    #1101415
    bein_hasdorim
    Participant

    Didn’t you hear? black is the new blue!

    Al tifrosh min hatzibbur, I guess they want to be recognized by all.

    Also it’s cooler, i mean easier to wear a hat than a turban,

    and lighter. Also if it gets ruined very easy to replace.

    As opposed to their rare special order (I assume) hats.

    #1101416
    YehudahTzvi
    Participant

    I think that all frum Yidden should have moved toward Sephardic dress and turbans as it is most assuredly closer to the original.

    #1101417
    Will Rogers
    Member

    YehudahTzvi: How is it “most assuredly closer to the original”? I think not. And what and when, exactly, was “the original”?

    #1101418
    Will Rogers
    Member

    As far as the Shtreimel is concerned, not that it has anything to do with the OP’s point, it never was worn by non-Jews. And you won’t find pictures of such. They may have wore some sort of fur hats, but never the form of a shtreimel. The shtreimel was originally designed as a Jewish hat.

    #1101419
    YehudahTzvi
    Participant

    Seriously, Will? We are a Middle Eastern People and thus our dress was therefore closer to what is worn in the Middle East, not Eastern Europe. Think it was probably a bit hot in the Midbar to wear a fox fur hat and long black coat.

    #1101420
    Obaminator
    Member

    Sefardim came from Spain (hence “Sefardim”) before they moved to the Middle East.

    #1101421
    YehudahTzvi
    Participant

    Yes, but the dress is that of the Middle East since there are no Jews in Spain. If it makes you feel better, substitute Eidat HaMizrach for Sephardic.

    Hacham Ovadia, though once the Chief “Sephardic” Rabbi was born in Iraq.

    #1101422
    Obaminator
    Member

    The dress may have been Mid East when the lived there, but since they lived in Spain before the Mid East, their traditions derive from Spain. There wasn’t any more of an unbroken chain from Yerushlayim to Spain to Iraq then there was from Yerushlayim to Ashkenaz.

    #1101423
    MDG
    Participant

    Sefardim came from Spain (hence “Sefardim”) before they moved to the Middle East.

    First of all, some Sephardim went from the middle east to Spain and lived there for a much shorter time than Ashkenazim lived in Europe.

    2nd, not all “Sephardim” came from Spain.

    #1101424
    MDG
    Participant

    The Jews of Iraq and Iran are genetically from a different gene pool than other Jews. That study was published about a year ago. They moved there (or should we say were taken there) during the first galut and stayed there for 2300+ years. Rav Ovadia is from Iraq.

    #1101425
    Hacham
    Member

    The tradition of the Jews from Spain (the Sephardim) is that they arrived in Spain after the FIRST Churban Beis Hamikdash.

    #1101426
    YehudahTzvi
    Participant

    Correct MDG. Thank you. That was the point I was trying to convey.

    Obaminator, I am not talking about traditions. I am talking about dress. Jewish dress has changed throughout the centuries among all Jews (except perhaps the Temanim). That being said, Israel is a Middle Eastern country and that is where we are all from. Ergo, our original dress would more than likely be closer to those other groups from the Middle east: Jalabiya, turban, etc.

    No one is telling you to forgo your Shtreimel or fedora. All I’m saying is that we are not indigenous to Europe.

    #1101427
    Hacham
    Member

    Yehuda: Your argument should be everyone should adapt the Temanim’s dress.

    Anyways, I don’t buy the argument that since the weather in Syria is closer to the weather in E. Yisroel they were more likely to be wearing clothing similar to the Beis Hamikdash era than people dealing with the weather in France.

    Also, we are not indigenous to Syria or Iraq.

    #1101428
    MDG
    Participant

    I think what YehudahTzvi is saying is quite reasonable that the traditional ME clothing is probably very similar to what was worn 2000 years ago. BUT I do realize that styles change. They could have changed from then until now, and even if the did not, we could still wear our western/European clothes now.

    Speaking of Iraqi Jews, the Ben Ish Hy mentions not to wear black on Shabbat, but IIRC he does not mention any style. Furthermore, the Mishnah of Shabbat 6th perek talks about different styles of clothing. Apparently there were different styles back then.

    #1101429
    MDG
    Participant

    “Also, we are not indigenous to Syria or Iraq. “

    I think that Avraham Avinu came from that area.

    #1101430
    YehudahTzvi
    Participant

    Yes. Avraham did come from there. therefore I have less of a problem “re”adopting the dress of the Temanim or the Beduin than see Mizrachim and Sephardim dressing like they came from Volozhin. It is this precisely this ethnocentric thought that has defined black suits and fedoras as “Jewish” dress.

    My Rav who has semicha from Chofitz Chaim was medakdek to not where a black hat (he wore gray) as he was taught that a black hat was gaivadik as people wore them to look “frummer”. Twenty years later he is now wearing a black hat. Why? Because his daughters all married Yeshivish guys and he was pressured.

    FYI, i am black hat on Shabbos. Why? My wife’s cousins in Monsey guilted me into getting one.

    Again, all I am saying is that we are Middle eastern and thus perhaps our dress should reflect Rav Amnon Yitzchak Shlita’s rather than mobsters from the 1940s.

    #1101431
    YehudahTzvi
    Participant

    “Your argument should be everyone should adapt the Temanim’s dress.”

    Amen. But I’m not convinced that Yemenite dress is authentic as they rap their turbans around a Fez which is Turkish.

    #1101432
    Hacham
    Member

    Certainly more authentic than Sefardim or Ashkenazim. In any event, there is no greater claim to authenticity or originality between the Sefardim and Ashkenazim.

    #1101433
    MDG
    Participant

    “In any event, there is no greater claim to authenticity or originality between the Sefardim and Ashkenazim. “

    At least in color, Sepharadim are better. There are no positive references to wearing black in the Gemara.

    #1101434
    Nahapochu
    Member

    To Be recognized. for example, Rav David Abuchazerah wears a yeshivishe hat and jacket and is respected by all edos. His brother Rav Elazar zt”l wore the traditional Moroccan garb his father and grandfather wore, and was not as respected in all circles. his petira was also less felt in the ashkenazi velt for that reason.

    #1101435
    YehudahTzvi
    Participant

    Nahapochu, that is very sad.

    #1101436
    Hacham
    Member

    Nahapochu: What are you talking about? No one respected him less for that. Many respected him more for that.

    #1101437
    Hacham
    Member

    Nahapochu: What are you talking about? No one respected him less for that. Many respected him more for that.

    #1101438
    ovadiayosefrocks
    Participant

    I think the reason is that they want to be the same like all the other rabbis-they want to stay low. These tzadikkim don’t like being famous.

    #1101439
    147
    Participant

    Sephardim having been forced into Ashkenazic or western style of dressing, doesn’t commence with the hat.

    It already commences with suit & main clothing [with hat just topping off this issue {please excuse the pun}], since “Al Pi Kabbolo” one is not supposed to wear black on Shabbos, black being connected with Saturn >> Saturday; One should try & wear 4 pieces of white clothing, the rest can be any color other than black.

    Yet somehow, most Ashkenazim wear black [Navy & Charcoal suits would circumvent this issue] and the Sephardim of contemprorary time, have been dragged along with this Askenazic mode of dress.

    #1101440
    writersoul
    Participant

    One problem is that in the Israel of 50-60 years ago, Sefardim weren’t considered as ‘up there’ in the social strata as the Ashkenazim, many of whom were there since the first yishuv. The Ashkenazim were the dominant people (in the secular world especially, many times they still unfortunately are) and most yeshivos were Ashkenazi. In order for a Sefardi to get into one he needed to kind of blend in. I assume that from there it spread.

    #1101441
    DovidM
    Member

    I was told that black dye was at one time more expensive than brown, and that it became a sign of wealth among the goyim. The yidden who first took to wearing black were thus were wearing a color that the goyish gentry were wearing.

    #1101442
    membenezra
    Member

    I sometimes wear Arabic robe with turban for Shabbos if it is hot outside.

    #1101443
    MDG
    Participant

    In European culture, black is considered as Chashuv. Even today, if a person wants to get very dressed up in secular America he wears a black tuxedo.

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