Wearing My Faith How A Yarmulke Helped Me Celebrate Our Differences

[Music]

i’m here today in my high school dress

code

i’m wearing my st john’s prep polo khaki

pants a belt and leather shoes but every

day before leaving the house i also put

on one more thing

it’s not typical attire for a student at

my catholic high school

but i always come to school wearing a

yarmulke

a traditional jewish head covering i

started wearing this yamaka just two

years ago

it’s not something that i grew up

wearing or something that my dad would

rather wear and in fact

when i started wearing it my parents and

grandparents pleaded with me to change

my mind

they feared for my safety worrying that

i would be singled out or perhaps even

ostracized

particularly at a school where judaism

is far from the norm

but i felt compelled to start wearing it

after hearing the shattering news

that a gunman had murdered 11 jewish

worshipers in the tree of life synagogue

in squirrel hill pennsylvania

people who had gone to a house of

worship to pray were murdered in cold

blood

simply because they were jewish it

shocked me to hear about this the

deadliest anti-semitic attack on

american soil but instead of responding

to the terror by hiding my identity

i felt the need to visibly express my

faith until that tragedy i had assumed

anti-semitism was a distant memory

i had heard older relatives share their

stories about facing prejudice long ago

in the 1950s my grandfather’s classmates

even tried to drown him in his high

school swimming pool

simply because he was jewish my parents

and grandparents responded by

downplaying their religion

and trying to blend in but the attack in

squirrel hill showed me that that

approach wasn’t working

according to the fbi’s annual hate crime

report anti-semitism still accounts for

nearly 60

of religiously based hate crimes in

america and jews make up less than two

percent

of the population after the attack

instagram was full of my jewish friends

condemning the atrocity but i knew that

like other us shootings it would soon be

forgotten

at the root of any hate is ignorance and

the dehumanization of others

i felt the need to actively engage with

those harboring hate

and by wearing a yamaka i wanted to show

people i was jewish to spark

conversations even if they might be

difficult

those conversations came quickly for

some of my classmates i was the first

jewish person they knew

one friend asked if passover which

commemorates the jews liberation from

egyptian slavery

celebrated genocide i explained that

this story was primarily symbolic

with the ten plagues representing the

importance of freedom and the wickedness

of slavery

this question although asked innocently

reminded me of blood libel

and the false belief that jews made

matzah or unleavened bread with the

blood of christian babies

left unanswered these questions could

fester into something similarly

malignant and untrue and since i started

wearing a yamaka classmates i barely

know have asked me about topics ranging

from israeli policy to judaism’s

opinions on the lgbtq community

just because i’m jewish doesn’t mean i

have all the answers so i started doing

research to offer informed opinions

not all my experiences have been

positive strangers have mocked me

a teenager shouted slurs during my

school state championship football game

drawing that bigotry has been

particularly unsettling because judaism

is usually a hidden

without my yamaka i wouldn’t have known

that that person was anti-semitic or

been subjected to his hate

by choosing to display my differences i

invite antagonism

as well as conversation but i believe

that those ugly moments are worth it in

order to draw out authentic

meaningful interactions the more we know

and understand about our differences

the more we can find our similarities as

well this promotes our ability

to develop true kinship by claiming

sharing and embracing our differences

in those differences we also find our

similarities and can

explore our shared humanity i’ve seen

this

kinship with others in my daily life

while on a walk with my brother we ran

into a man who saw my yamaka and called

out shabbat shalom

which is a traditional jewish greeting

on friday nights or saturdays during the

jewish day of rest

i was asked to join my school’s

multicultural student advisory committee

representing a jewish voice on campus as

i started talking to diverse groups of

classmates about their experiences

my eyes opened to the struggles that

others face especially those who can’t

just cover their differences with a

baseball cap

working to make my school more inclusive

has made me feel

part of something bigger than myself we

plan programs to celebrate our diverse

student body

like hispanic heritage movie screenings

and diversity themed trivia nights

and talk about some of the challenges of

being a minority on campus

this makes me feel a kinship with my

peers and a passion

to combat discrimination of all kinds

not just in the ways that affect me

directly at my all-boys school that

includes me joining the student gender

task force

we teach underclassmen the dangers of

toxic masculinity and how to identify

sexism

this semester i’m taking the fight

against prejudice one step further

by joining a new program focused on

anti-racism

white identifying students learn about

topics like microaggressions and

intersectionality

after completing the program we’ll

educate our classmates about how to be

an anti-racist

i’m excited by this effort to create a

more just environment for my peers and

promote kinship on campus

and although i don’t know that we can

ever truly understand the challenges

someone else faces we need to listen to

their experiences

and instead of trying to ignore our

differences we must find ways to

acknowledge them

and actively support each other when i

started to wear yamaka i faced new

challenges

but along with the risks of standing out

there have been rewards

as a jewish student who won my school’s

award for exemplifying its catholic

zaverian values i’ve shown students from

diverse backgrounds

that they don’t have to conform or hide

who they are but that they should

embrace and share what makes them unique

before being jewish was a part of my

identity in the same way that i have

brown hair or blue eyes

i was simply born with it but by putting

on a yamaha and placing myself in

uncomfortable situations

i didn’t just show who i am according to

the faith of my ancestors

i discovered how i want to interact with

the world inviting hard conversations

and daring to openly wear my beliefs

thank you