A U.S. government delegation tasked with monitoring religious freedom around the world cut a visit to Saudi Arabia short after Saudi officials demanded that a prominent rabbi on the trip remove his kippah.
Saudi officials told Rabbi Abraham Cooper, co-chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, to remove his kippah while in public, the commission said in a statement on Monday.
Cooper, an Orthodox rabbi and the director of global social action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center advocacy group, “politely” refused the request with the backing of U.S. embassy staff, the statement said.
When did a kippah become so obligatory? If they told him to remove his tzitzis, okay that would be outrageous but why couldn't he just put on a hat?
ReplyDeleteSo in the BT yeshiva back in the 80s, one rabbi was saying that there is nothing more Jewish than his hassidic garb. I pointed out it's totally arbitrary adopted from European xtian nobles. So he said yes, the kohanim would dress in white.
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