I Guess Wearing a Yarmulke Is Out Of Style

The Washington Post ran a story this morning criticizing Jack Abramoff's choice of dress for his hearings in Washington, D.C. and Miami this week. What the writer fails to realize though is that Abramoff was avoiding a chillul hashem by not showing up in a yarmulke and having his photos published all over the Internet. That would have wound up being very bad news for the Jews, so instead he wore whatever hats he could dig up, making sure to fulfill his religious commitment to cover his noggin with something at all.

That was obvious to anyone who knows that he is an Orthodox Jew who regularly wears a yarmulke, even professionally. Without that piece of information, the article doesn't seem to make any sense, as the writer denounces him for the looks he wound up pulling off. I am sure that Abramoff did not care how he presented himself, simply worrying about getting around appearing so openly in a yarmulke and being identified as that. It's a shame that he has to worry about that, but that is the world we live in.

The article can be accessed here.

Dan