Every black girl brought up in America knows how to do black people’s hair: braids, corn rows, curls, perms, waves, etc. Thus Lura goes to a French hairstylist and I go the Black Hebrews or Sister Ida if she’s around.
You see, I came to Israel just for a visit and didn’t leave for 2 ˝ years. Meanwhile my hair kept growing longer and longer. I remember running all over Israel looking for an Afro-comb, talking about a needle in a haystack which I never did find.
So much hair what should I do? How should I wear it? Should I cut it all off?
Then this idea popped into my head: have the back braided into a kippah (yarmulke, skullcap, beanie) the sides into payot (earlocks, sidecurls) Lev 19:27, and cutting the remaining areas short. Radical!
Looking back on it, I see it’s a God sense of humor type of thing! It makes a lot of people smile! People want to take pictures of my head, not my face. They actually want me to turn-around so they can get a good picture of the back of my head.
Once a rabbi kept starring at me, I finally told him “I was born with a kippah and if that’s not Jewish enough for you, what is?” And we laughed.
I’m often mistaken for a Yemenite Jew; little did I know at the time that the Yemenite Jews wear braided payot like mine. But my kippah is still one of a kind…so far.
The other day I pointed to an Ethiopian’s kippah, then I showed him mine, and we both had a ‘big’ laugh.
It’s enabled Lura and me to build a report with the Black Hebrews giving to them English/Hebrew New Testaments. We’ve since giving them old Ebony and Jet magazines collected from the States. And our home-grown collard greens have taken us over the top!
It also makes us well known and liked among the Ethiopians.
It also makes a clear statement that I’m standing in solidarity with the Jews. Personally I think it takes a lot of guts to wear a kippah, even in America. It’s like walking around with a sign on your back “Kick me – I’m a Jew”. In the Middle East, the sign may read “Kill me”.
Edwin Beckford
December 2003