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Things that are weird in Israel #6: Young guys who wear a kippah even when they're not religious...

Can somebody explain this phenomenon to me?  I'm serious.

Here are two different guys, not together, but wearing the same white (non-Nachman) kippah, spotted on my way home from the Merkazit (central bus station) after Shabbos.  

It wasn't that they didn't know they had it on.  And it wasn't that they were secretly frum (the guy on the Metronit platform was horsing around with all the scantily-clad girls around him, plus... um, the ubiquitous chiloni-guy payos-totally-off haircut?).  Probably not that their parents make them.

I don't know what the deal is with these guys, or what kind of thing they're saying with these big white kippahs.  In both cases, they were the only one among their friends to wear one.

Somebody want to fill me in???

2 comments:

  1. The Sephardi community is largely mesorati (traditional), even if they don't see themselves as dati. Of course, like everything else in Israel, it's hard to label people. I can think of a couple of reasons for the kippah-wearing, although I'm sure there are more. First, sometimes guys wear a kippah when they are in aveilut. I've seen it done through the shloshim and through the year (and have also seen people who keep wearing it, even after the year is finished). Second, there are (for lack of a better term) "revival rallies," where well-known rabbis and mekubalim come to speak in a community. They are very well attended by all sectors of sephardi society, and one would definitely wear a kippah.

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    Replies
    1. Hmm... well, it could be that the guy on the platform is an aveil. Pretty weird, though; I mean, the girls were basically sitting on his lap. Doubt he's on his way to a revival of any kind. And I keep thinking, don't they know about cutting off the sides of their hair??!?

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