From Togas to Turbans: Jewish Male Head Coverings between the Roman and Sasanian Worlds

This essay offers a contextual study of classical rabbinic discussions concerning male head coverings, disentangling them from the teleological framework of the later kippah or skullcap, for which these texts have often been cited as origins or normative foundations. It demonstrates that male headdress was deemed appropriate in different situations; bore different material forms; and carried distinct social, cultural, and theological connotations in Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic literature. The differences between these two bodies of literature derive from their prevailing Roman and Sasanian sociocultural backgrounds, but also from developments over time that occurred within Jewish thought and customs. The late antique rabbis in Palestine and Babylonia therefore present a captivating test case to examine how the semiotics, forms, and practices associated with clothing both remain constant among self-identifying groups and change relative to the circumambient cultures in which the wearers live.