Culture-Hopping in a Fedora

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By John Ortved

Theophilus London, a hip-hop artist.

NEW YORK - Called either a “black hat” or Borsalino, for the style’s most famous and expensive brand, the simple hat is most commonly associated with ultra-Orthodox non-Hasidic Jews, as well as members of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect, the Hasidic group based in Crown Heights.

While the tradition of Jews wearing black headgear goes back ages (it was a sign of mourning for the loss of Jerusalem), it wasn’t until the 1960s that ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, as well as Chabad-Lubavitch Jews, began wearing the black fedora to distinguish themselves. “As the differences between left and right begin to crystallize — when the trauma of survival is behind the Orthodox Jews and they’re re-establishing themselves in North America and Israel — they’re looking for some way to ensure they’re not assimilated, that they don’t disappear,” Professor Heilman said. “It’s not just the black hat. It’s the black suit jacket, the black pants and the white shirt, black shoes and glasses with black frames.” [link]