Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxt.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!ihuxt!martillo From: martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Kippot and David Sher Message-ID: <650@ihuxt.UUCP> Date: Tue, 17-Jul-84 19:45:25 EDT Article-I.D.: ihuxt.650 Posted: Tue Jul 17 19:45:25 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 18-Jul-84 03:34:49 EDT Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL Lines: 63 To: martillo The Mailer-Demon is currently not working on rochester so that I can only reply to David Sher via the net, but others might be interested in the reply. David: If you researched the issue, you would find that these little kippahs which people wear to affirm Jewish identity in the U.S.A. (and now in Israel) are something specifically American. In Eastern Europe, a Jew would probably have worn a skullcap inside a building (considerably larger than these tiny American ones). When he went outside, he put on a real hat over it. The Hasidim in the USA dress exactly as I describe. When I see these little ones on college students, I have the impression the wearer is uncomfortable because American custom is to go bare-headed, the wearer wants to go bare-headed too, but since he wants to identify with Judaism he will wear a head-covering but as little as possible. I sense embarrassment that he cannot be just like the other Americans, and I do not like this attitude and I consider it groveling. I simply do not understand embarassment at being different. Diversity makes the world rather more interesting. As for development in the face of historical change, I accept this point. My gripe is that when Ashkenazim were faced with the advent of modernism, different groups of Ashkenazim made different choices but all the choices they made were wrong and disastrous for all the Jewish people not just Ashkenazim. I hope in Israel they will get over these disastrous mistakes. The eventual dominance of the Sefardi community gives hope because the Sefardic leaders show much less mental rigidity. Mapam was calling the Soviet Union a Jewish homeland into the early 60's. In the United States I see all the fossil remnants of Jewish ideologies which only made sense (and not much) before WWII. As for word choice, I dislike this clinging to Yiddish just as a German peasant clings to his dialect. The Jewish tradition is a highly intellectual tradition; for Jews, ideas were always much more important than the language in which they are expressed. It happens (thanks to the Rambam) Jewish ideas are much more easily and naturally expressed in Hebrew than any other language. When the Ashkenazim began clinging to Yiddish, they began to drop out of the Jewish world becoming members of the socialist or communist communities. I view Yiddish as an impediment to being Jewish. If Sefardim were engaging in the same sort of stupidity, I would dump on it too. Yarmulke is in fact from leshon Kodesh but it is only Yiddish so that I would not use it. I would not use takeika (yarmulke in Ladino) either. When I hear gut shabbes, I always wince at the inappropriate combination of German and Hebrew which typifies the mental confusion of the Ashkenazi community. We would never say buena shabbat. -- Who wouldn't break for whales? Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo