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