Wearing a backward cap often conveys a message of a casual, laid-back, or even rebellious attitude. It can also be interpreted as a sign of informality or a subtle expression of youthful mischief.

But nearly 200 years ago, with a slightly different cap, it was a clever form of Jewish resistance to a cruel regime hellbent on erasing Jewish identity, culture, and belief.

The year was 1844, and Tsar Nikolai the First (known as the Iron Tsar) was launching his multipronged campaign against his Jewish subjects, then the largest Jewish population in the world.

The cruel decree of the Cantonists, whereby young Jewish boys were dragged off to serve in the Imperial Army for 25 years, was in full force.

But the Jewish community remained stubbornly intact.

The Tsar turned to Jewish education, enacting laws that would alter or even replace the cheder, the traditional Jewish school which had produced generations of learned, pious young Jews.

But attacking the youth alone was too slow a tactic.

This led to the next enactment: Outlawing Jewish dress. Beards and peyot, long black caftans, knickers (loose knee-length pants), and tall, round yarmulkes were all forbidden. Instead, men needed to wear caps with visors or brims, something previously seen as not Jewish.

Jewish communities were divided on how to respond.

Those in Poland, a bastion of Chassidic life, then part of the Russian Empire, took the approach that this was a time when Judaism was under existential attack (shaat hashemad) and that a Jew should go so far as to lay his life on the line rather than bow to the demands.

This led to the invention of the Polish-style Jewish hat, a yarmulke with an almost invisible visor, just enough to legally be considered present.

This hat, with its barely perceptible visor, is said to have been originally developed by Polish Jews who tried to preserve the historic Jewish look and conform to the law. Ubiquitous in pre-Holocaust Poland, it is now mostly worn by young men in certain Chasidic communities.
This hat, with its barely perceptible visor, is said to have been originally developed by Polish Jews who tried to preserve the historic Jewish look and conform to the law. Ubiquitous in pre-Holocaust Poland, it is now mostly worn by young men in certain Chasidic communities.

The Lithuanian rabbinic establishment, on the other hand, took a different approach, ruling that while Jewish clothing was certainly important, it was not necessary to endanger oneself or one's property to maintain it. Indeed, this was the ruling of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, the Third Chabad Rebbe, known as the Tzemach Tzedek.1

Yet, even though it was technically allowed, many of the Tzemach Tzedek’s students and followers were loath to abandon the beloved look of the Jew, couched in Jewish law and enshrined in centuries of tradition. (See here for how Rabbi Hillel of Paritch was brutally beaten by the authorities for his refusal to comply.)

The Rebbe related that some Chassidim were particularly wary of donning caps with visors, since the Prophet Isaiah commanded, “Lift your eyes heavenward and see Who created this.” This new edict requiring everyone to wear a visor was intended to prevent a Jew from gazing up and thinking of G‑d, they told each other.2

Knowing that failure to wear a visor would result in jail time, they put on visored caps but turned them around so that the visor shaded their necks rather than their eyes, which was 100% legal since the law did not specify how the visor had to be worn, only that it had to be present.

As the Rebbe explained it, this was not just a loophole or compromise. Rather, they turned the evil decree on itself. Instead of allowing the visor to obstruct their G‑dly awareness, they placed it over the neck, associated with all things opposed to holiness, and put a symbolic lid on it.

Thus, the backward cap was not just a clever way to weasel out of a law but a means to battle it and turn it on itself.