Peering into a closet of mid-calf length skirts, it’s hard to believe I ever wore shorts. I often have a hard time recognizing myself in pictures that are only a handful of years old. Much has changed in the two and a half years since I began wearing a kippah full-time: Namely, I’ve become more religious. It’s also true, though, that gender was never a consideration factor in my Jewish practice until quite recently.
Even most of my halakhic egalitarian friends have avoided wearing one, being unable to shake the connection to masculinity.
It seems to surprise everyone that I never associated wearing a kippah with gender. Little did I know then that I would eventually take my kippah off in realizing my failure to represent myself to the Jewish people. This was a time to replete with pure excitement: I cherished the weight of being seen as a religious Jew in my town where many people have never even met one, proud of this responsibility I would now carry to be an honorable representation of the Jewish people. Before hitching a shared cab back to the Ben Gurion Airport, I clipped a colorful crocheted kippah into my hair and proudly shared pictures of my new sartorial status to my friends. After spending two months in yeshiva where I covered my head during classes (which is to say, nearly all day), I was so accustomed to wearing a kippah that I couldn’t imagine going back to a bare head. I began full-time kippah wearing at the conclusion of the summer of 2016. It occurs to me that I don’t remember which was the last I wore, my kippah collection now in the dozens.
The last time I wore a kippah was only a few weeks ago, nearly two decades after I got my first.
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