“How does a kippah stay on?”

When tourists visit the Jewish cemetery in Prague, all men are asked to wear a kippah. Those who travel kippah-free are requested to don a blue, sharply-creased, circular piece of paper. The precarious kippah is inevitably subjected to the winds off the Vltava and flutters away. Comparably, a non-Jewish man attending a synagogue ceremony such as a marriage or Bar Mitzvah, will usually be requested to wear a kippah. Here, a stiff yet slippery synthetic satin kippah is ubiquitous. No guest stands a chance.

What then is the secret to making a kippah stay on? It is disappointingly simple. Jews who frequently wear a kippah know where to put it on their head (the crown) and tend to own kippot which have been tried, tested and are a good fit. Should they opt for one of the smaller kippah sizes (as opposed to the head-encompassing “soup bowl” style) a hair clip may be used to fasten the fabric to any available hair. This solution is not universally accepted, however, and the hair clip is rejected by staunch traditionalists. If the wearer chooses a suede kippah, bald heads happily have the advantage of a high coefficient of friction.

Should all else fail, the ultimate kippah secret is double-sided fashion tape or a dot of one-sided velcro. Please note: stick the velcro to the kippah, not to your head.

Michal Friedlander, Curator for Judaica and Applied Arts