Open any Jewish children's Bible, and you'll see Jonah wearing a kippah in the whale's belly. King David's composing psalms with a neat little yarmulke on his head. There's just one problem—none of them actually wore anything like the modern Jewish skullcap.
In fact, we have a fascinating manuscript from 15th-century Italy showing Jews in a synagogue, and surprisingly, only about half the men are wearing any head covering at all. This wasn't some radical congregation—it was just normal for the time.
Let's go even further back. We have clear evidence that in Talmudic times, most Jewish men went about with uncovered heads. One of our best proofs comes from a fascinating story in the Talmud (Shabbat 156b) about Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak. When astrologers told his mother that her son would become a thief, she insisted he keep his head covered to instill "fear of Heaven." One day, while studying under a palm tree, his head covering fell off. When he looked up and saw the dates above him, he was overcome with an urge to climb up and bite them off with his teeth! The very fact that this was presented as something unusual tells us that head covering wasn't standard practice.
Later texts reinforce this. The 8th-century Masekhet Sofrim (14:15) records a debate about head covering during prayer—some said you could recite the Shema with an uncovered head, while others objected only to pronouncing divine names uncovered. This debate only makes sense if bare heads were common.
So how did we get from there to today's practice? During medieval times, Jewish men who did cover their heads wore whatever was locally common—turbans in Muslim lands, berets in Western Europe, and various other styles. In the 14th century, Rabbenu Yerucham of Provence declared that men should cover their heads in synagogue—but note this was just in synagogue, not all the time.
The real shift came in the 16th century, when Rabbi Joseph Karo (1488-1575), author of the Shulchan Aruch, ruled that Jewish men should keep their heads covered constantly. Even then, this wasn't universally adopted. Many Jews continued to cover their heads only during prayer and study.
The small round cap we know today emerged even later. In 19th-century America, Jews often wore what were called "Chinese-style" skullcaps—large dome-shaped caps much bigger than today's yarmulke, not the conical hats you might imagine. Over time, these caps got smaller and smaller until they evolved into the familiar modern form.
Even the words we use have surprising origins. "Yarmulke" appears in Polish documents as early as the 15th century as jarmułka—we even have a record from 1617 mentioning "pearl and gold-headed jarmułki." The word itself likely comes from either Medieval Latin almutia (meaning a hood or cowl) or from Turkish yağmurluk (meaning a hooded raincoat), which entered Polish through other Eastern European languages. And kippah, meaning "dome" in Hebrew, only became the standard Hebrew term in the early 20th century.
What started as an individual practice for extra piety gradually evolved into one of the most recognizable symbols of Jewish identity. But like many traditions, its familiar form is much younger than most people realize.

Since When Do Jews Wear Yarmulkes?

Some viewers have asked why I use the term "Palestine" when discussing events before 1948. Let's explore how this term has been used through history.
The English word "Palestine" has a documented history going back to at least the early 17th century. In 1628, we find the term "Palestine Bishops" in English texts, and by the 18th century, it was commonly used in religious and historical writings. By the 19th century, organizations like the Palestine Exploration Fund were using it as a standard geographic term.
But the name's history goes back much further in other languages. It first appeared as "Peleset" in ancient Egyptian texts around 1150 BCE. The Greeks used "Palaistinē," and after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE, the Romans officially named the province "Syria Palaestina."
In medieval times, the region was known by several names. Arabic sources used "Filastin," while Jewish texts often used both "Eretz Israel" and "Palestina." We can see this in documents from the Cairo Geniza, where medieval Jewish merchants and scholars naturally used these terms in their writings.
During the Ottoman period (1516-1917), while the empire divided the region into different administrative districts, "Palestine" remained a commonly used geographic term. It wasn't the name of a country - there was no independent state called Palestine - but rather a regional designation, like saying "the Levant" or "the Holy Land."
This usage was formalized during the British Mandate period (1920-1948), when "Palestine" became the official name used on everything from passports to postage stamps. The designation "Palestinian" applied to all residents - Jewish and Arab alike - as we can see in documents like The Palestine Post (now The Jerusalem Post).
When historians today use "Palestine" for the pre-1948 period, they're following this long documentary record. It's not a political statement but rather the use of historically attested terminology. Just as we use "Mesopotamia" when discussing ancient Iraq, or "Asia Minor" for ancient Turkey, we use the terms that were common in the period we're discussing.

Why I Say "Palestine" in My Videos

What is the Hebrew word for "fart" and where did it come from? In the last video, we saw that Ben-Yehuda reconstructed the ancient Hebrew word for "fart" but was unsuccessful in getting it adopted in modern Hebrew. Instead, some other words emerged.
The most formal term, "neficha" (נפיחה), entered the scene in 1927. It was introduced by two scholars, Lazarus and Torczyner, in their German-Hebrew dictionary. They found this word in a fascinating place - Rashi's medieval commentary on the Talmud, where he used it to describe "air released from the body after eating." The word literally means "blowing" or "inflation," making it a rather polite way to describe the phenomenon.
But the term that really caught on was "plotz." First documented in 1934 by scholar Daniel Persky, who reported it as new children's slang, this word has an interesting origin. It likely came from the German word "Furz" or the Yiddish word "Fritz," but with a twist - the 'r' changed to 'l', a common sound shift that happens in many languages. This word proved so successful that it spawned a whole family of related terms: the synonym "plitza," "paltzan" (someone who does it frequently), and the verb "lehaplitz," which are all very common.
A third term is "no'd" (נאד), also first recorded by Persky. It comes from "no'd nafuach" - an inflated waterskin - a metaphor for someone puffed up with self-importance. Just as English "flatulent" can mean both full of gas and full of hot air, Hebrew speakers started using this term for actual gas, and today you're more likely to hear "no'd" referring to flatulence than to actual waterskins.
So modern Hebrew ended up with three main words for this basic bodily function - one from religious texts, one from German, and one from an ancient metaphor about inflated waterskins!

hero_title_new

speaking_preview_title

talk1_title

talk2_title

talk3_title

video_sampler_title

Since When Do Jews Wear Yarmulkes?

Why I Say "Palestine" in My Videos

The Hebrew Word for Fart (Pt. 2)

featured_etymology

footer_cta_headline