Yarmulke or Not?

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

February 16-17, 2024 • 8 Adar 1 5784 • Terumah (Ex 25-27). 

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As a spinoff on last week's "Onion or Not", here's an interesting discussion that came up in a Jewish forum this week.

First, we all know that since October 7 we've been seeing new expressions of antisemitism around the Western world, such as this Jewish man stabbed in Paris yesterday and this poster reported at Macquarie University in Sidney....
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But wait... that's like Nazi-level stuff, right?

Are there really people in Sidney, Australia in 2024 who hate Jews so much that they would design and distribute such stuff? 

Well, yeah, that's not new, unfortunately.

But, but, but - acting brashly and violently isn't the same as the laborious and deliberate creation and distribution of a poster or sticker? Doesn't that go way beyond the pale?

As easy as it would be to decry this as a classic neo-Nazi surge, it turns out that the story isn't quite as simple as that.

That ugly poster is based on this very ugly video of a Jewish man saying those exact words to a Palestinian woman who accused him of stealing her home....

So as ugly and painful as it is, it's a little more complicated than the Nazis, right?

Try asking your table - What's your take? Antisemitic or legitimate criticism?

Now for the online forum....someone posted the following question:

Would be ok for a non-Jew to wear a yarmulke? In this case, I’m playing a Jewish character in a musical, (Mr. Mushnik in Little Shop of Horrors), and I want to wear a yarmulke to improve characterization. I’m going to pitch this idea to my director, and I want as much evidence backing me as possible, so I figured I poll a place where I know I could find people who knew what they were talking about, when it comes to this detail. 

So first and foremost, try polling your table on this question - does everyone agree one way or the other, or is it debatable?

My personal take:

Mr. Mushnik is described here as the "grumpy, stingy owner of Mushnik's Flower Shop" and here as "...given to cursing in Yiddish. He is a man who seldom smiles and often yells."

So you put a yarmulke on this grumpy, stingy, cursing small business owner to emphasize that he's not only Jewish but religious? That's an overt anti-Semitic trope, if you ask me. Even without the yarmulke the character is offensive and all Jewish references should be changed.

(Mind you, I didn't know anything about Mushnik before doing a quick search. But the info wasn't hard to find.)

Now, in the online example, 53% voted "OK" and 47% voted "Not OK." 

That's out of 170 Jewish (or mostly-Jewish) people.

Second question for your table: Does that poll result surprise you?


Alexander Seinfeld

PS - Do you know how many days until Purim and Pesach?

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