What’s on My Head Now? Pride in My Kippah Again

A little more than a year ago, I wrote my first article about wearing a kippah after October 7. At the time, I was struggling with something that had once seemed impossible to me: being embarrassed to be recognized as Jewish.

I had worn my kippah while playing basketball since third grade. It had fallen off my head more times than I could count, usually at the worst possible moments, like while I was sprinting down the court or jumping for a rebound. But after October 7, something that had always been a part of me suddenly felt like a liability.

I wrote that I wanted to get back to the place I was before the war. I wanted my pride in who I was to overpower my fear of what other people might think. Most of all, I wanted to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Looking back, I think I underestimated what it would take to get there.

It wasn’t one moment that changed everything. Maybe it was time. Maybe it was the conversations I had with others about my fears and identity. Or maybe it was simply becoming more confident in myself and in what I believed.

A big part of that growth came from becoming a Tikvah Scholar.

Through Tikvah, I was exposed to ideas and perspectives that were different from my own. I learned that having strong convictions doesn’t mean being afraid of disagreement. In fact, it means being willing to listen, ask questions and explain why you believe what you believe.

Diversity and difficult conversations don’t make me as uncomfortable as they once did. I’ve learned that I don’t have to agree with someone to have a meaningful conversation with them.

And, ironically, my kippah has helped me have many of those conversations.

Being that Jewish kid who could almost dunk became an unexpected way to connect with people. Other athletes would ask me questions about Judaism. Sometimes they were serious questions. Sometimes they were funny. Sometimes they were simply curious.

But the conversations happened because the kippah was there.

Instead of being something I wanted to hide, it became an invitation.

It also gave me an opportunity to show people something about Judaism without necessarily having to explain it. I could be intensely competitive on the basketball court while still trying to be respectful to my opponents and teammates. I could work as hard as anyone in the gym while remembering that how I treat people matters just as much as whether I win.

For me, that became a way of making a Kiddush Hashem — representing Judaism through the way I played and the way I treated people.

And yes, the kippah still flies off.

There have been plenty of games where I’ve had to scramble to pick it up off the floor before getting back on defense. There are moments when I’m jumping and hustling for every possession while simultaneously wondering whether my kippah is still on my head.

But I’ve realized that it’s worth the inconvenience.

More importantly, I’ve realized that I don’t want to spend my life adjusting who I am because of what someone else might think.

I now feel comfortable wearing my kippah when I play, whether I’m in Kansas City, Boston, Florida or New York. The location changes. The gym changes. The opponents change. But I don’t.

That doesn’t mean I’m unaware of the world around me. October 7 changed the way I think about being visibly Jewish and I don’t want to pretend that those fears never existed. They did. And I think it was important that I acknowledged them.

But I also don’t want fear to define my choices.

When I wrote my first article, I was trying to figure out how to get my kippah back on my head. Now, I’m much more interested in the doors that open because it’s there.