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These are the kippot I currently have available for sale in my shop! Prices range $30-$45 plus $5 shipping within the USA. Shipping outside the USA is not currently available through the store, but I can and do ship internationally – just message me about it and pay me directly through paypal once I can get you a shipping estimate.

I also have a couple order forms available to make commissioning kippot extra easy as well, if I don't have exactly what you'd like in stock! If the options shown still don't cover quite what you'd like though, please feel free to message me! I'm always delighted to make custom work!

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Jewish bride and her mother in Djerba, Tunisia, 1983

The Tunisian Jewish bride was hennaed first by her mother-in-law, and then the following day again by a professional artist. The bride would sleep with the henna and strings overnight. In the morning, the women come to the bride’s house to check if the henna came out nicely; if it is good, they kiss her fingers and praise her beauty. If the colour is not strong enough, then they henna her again; all in all, the bride is hennaed about four or five times over the course of a week. The Jews of Djerba continued this tradition well into the 20th century.

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Judaism and Halloween

My two favorite holidays- Halloween and Purim- share a lot of the same props.  Candy, costumes, masks, even drinks for the older celebrants.  Back when I went to day school, many of my classmates would buy their Purim costumes in October.  (There were also dorks like me who always dressed as biblical characters for Purim, but hey, they could look like anything, right?)

Not all religious Jews are keen on Halloween, though.  I distinctly remember an evening before Halloween when I brought home a letter from the school principal asking parents not to send their children trick-or-treating.  “It has deep pagan roots”, the letter went, “and is, at heart, a Christian holiday.”  I was heartbroken, but my parents- a rabbi and a woman who was, at that point, getting her PhD in Jewish studies- thought it was absolutely hysterical.  They took me trick-or-treating as usual.

“There are no bumper stickers,” they told me, “that say ‘Put the Hallows back in All Hallows Eve’.”

They had a point.  Halloween is pretty disconnected from Christianity, and I imagine there were a few Christian schools who sent their students home with similar letters that evening.  As for pagan roots, I was later to learn that there isn’t a single holiday about which that can’t be said in one way or another.

(Someday I’ll talk about the time I was told blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanna was meant to scare away demons…but that’s a story for another time.)

The thing about a secular holiday is that religious Jewish kids could get excited about it.  Christmas spirit left us cold, and Passover meant nothing to the world at large, but for the month of October we could get excited about the same thing the rest of the children were excited about.  It sounds like a little thing, but it wasn’t- and still isn’t for me, to this day.  And if someone wasn’t into Halloween, that was also culturally acceptable.  You don’t see any big heartwarming family movies about forcing one family in the neighborhood who doesn’t like Halloween to get into the spirit of things, after all.

(Well, maybe Trick-r-Treat, but I will accept that kind of behavior from demons and dark gods.)

I used to live in a neighborhood that got super into Halloween decorations.  One day, my father pointed something out to me about them.

“Every decoration, from a house covered in skeletons to one with only a pumpkin, tells children that they can knock on the door and ask for candy.  How often do we really advertise that sort of thing?  Religious folks like to talk about feeding the hungry, but how many holidays have us hang signs on our doors that say, come to my house, stranger, and I will give to you?”

I thought about it at the time.  I’m still thinking about it to this day.

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*This poll was submitted to us and we simply posted it so people could vote and discuss their opinions on the matter. If you’d like for us to ask the internet a question for you, feel free to drop the poll of your choice in our inbox and we’ll post them anonymously (for more info, please check our pinned post).

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Faith is not a form of ‘knowing’ in the sense in which that word is used in science and philosophy. It is, in the Bible, a mode, of listening. The supreme expression of Jewish faith, usually translated as ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one’ (Deuteronomy 6:4), really means ‘Listen, O Israel’. Listening is an existential act of encounter, a way of hearing the person beneath the words, the music beneath the noise.

    — Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l, in The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning

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"But remember that an "angel" is anything that carries out a mission for God. This includes forces of nature. An angel doesn't have to be an intimidating, fiery being... Photosynthesis? That's an angel. Gravity? An angel. Magnetism? Angel. The Midrash in Bereishis Rabbah (chapter 1) says than an angel only performs one job. That job doesn't have to be destroying Sodom; it could be peristalsis, centripetal force or condensation."

- Rabbi Jack Abramowitz, The God Papers

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Once, Babylon seemed an invincible threat. Babylon is gone now; only archaeologists remember it.

We're still here.

Once, Rome seemed an invincible threat. Rome is gone now, only tourists remember it.

We're still here.

Once, the Crusaders seemed an invincible threat. The Crusaders are gone now, only historical dramas remember them.

We're still here.

Once, scapegoating for plague seemed an invincible threat. Those who scapegoated us are gone, long forgotten, the plague slain by antibiotics.

We're still here.

Once, the Inquisition seemed an invincible threat. The Inquisition is gone now, only comedians remember them.

We're still here.

Once, the rise of exclusionary nationalism seemed an invincible threat. Those nations have risen and fallen, the political movements that forged them remembered only by historians.

We're still here.

Once, the rise of Eugenics rendering us inferior vermin seemed an invincible threat. Eugenics has fallen, only historians and the scorned remember it.

We're still here.

Once, the Tsars both White and Red seemed invincible. The Tsars of both colors are gone now, and only a pale and thinly stretched shadow remembers them.

We're still here.

Once, the third Reich of Germany seemed an invincible threat. The Third Reich is gone now, and only desperate fools remember them.

We're still here.

Now, old new dangers have risen, those same desperate fools and former friends seeking scapegoats, who together seem invincible and inescapable.

But they, as with all things, will pass, in time.

And we will still be here.

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I was meant to be a Rabbi in ancient Judea and everyone would come up to me with their problems and I’d say things like “well, if you have a chicken, and the chicken has two eggs, isn’t that a type of truth in itself?” And people would argue about what it meant for hundreds of years.

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the world is YOUR oyster. not mine, a kosher-keeping jew.

the world can, however, be my giraffe, which is infinitely funnier.

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Beaded Torah Mantle, Jewish Museum, New York.

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Attend to your grief. Acknowledge your fear and anger. We cannot be of service unless we also tend to our broken hearts.

— Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann

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Goyim can reblog

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1. German silver-gilt Kiddush cup, probably for Passover, Augsburg, circa 1760. The inscription around the rim reads: “I will deliver you from their bondage” [Ex. 6:6]. This cup was thus likely used at the Passover Seder.

2. German silver Kiddush cup for Sukkot, Johann Friedrich Ehe, Nuremberg, 1789-93. Hebrew inscription translated as “Holiday of Sukkot, observe for seven days.”

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i just talked to a rabbi who said the way he explains the hanukkah miracle to non jews is by telling them to imagine their phone being on 10% and the battery lasting for 8 days and i am forever going to be using that analogy from now on

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