Legacy

by Bee Foster

When I think of my first memory of visiting France, I recall my mother telling me not to wear my magen david. My great-grandfather’s apartment was in the Jewish quarter and we were at high enough risk of being spit on without flaunting our Judaism. The situation I am recalling sadly is not my great grandfather's story but my story of 2024, this past summer. My fear of being spit on stopped me from attending Shabbat services at the Chabad. When sharing that I attended a Jewish school, a girl my age responded; “you dropped a bomb on me.” Her comment left me feeling isolated from the community, but thankfully, an opportunity to connect back to my roots arose.  

The main project of the program was designing and sewing a hat; “a good hat will showcase who you are”, the instructor told us. In fact my family is Ashkenazi, from France. They fled after the Dreyfus affair. Following their arrival in America, they made their living in the fur industry making coats, hats, and earmuffs. While my family is not Hasidic, some Ashkenazi Hasids choose to wear a large and circular fur hat called a shtreimel. As I sat contemplating how to work all these aspects of general and personal Ashkenazi history, a text came from my parents.

My parents sent a photo of Dreyfus in the sixth arrondissement. His statue stands tall with a broken sword at his side. The broken sword has become a symbol of Dreyfus; this is what triggered my design to start forming. Dreyfus wore the French military uniform of the 1890s, and the top of his hat was reminiscent of the shtreimel. While also including a brim like a baseball cap. The brim of his hat would have been blue, and the top red. Dreyfus, one of the few Jews to so proudly wear a red and blue French uniform, is one of the most well known Ashkenazi Jews. His story hit close to home for me causing it to be the main inspiration for my hat.

To honor his uniform, a blue cap was designed, rather than a red top, a fluffy circular fur to honor the shtreimel and my own family history. In the back, I planned to hand embroider a broken sword in honor of Dreyfus. The red ribbon around the brim is the same color as most of the original uniform Dreyfus would have worn. I planned to style it with a thrifted fur coat, making my great-grandparents proud.

As is true with many things, the hat did not become all I had hoped. Fur, real or fake, was not in reach, so brown velvet was settled on. The fabric wasn’t strong enough to hold a taller shape, and instead became a brimmed beret. Though inside the hat, where only I could see, were four bugs. These four bugs were the same insects my siblings and I had used to represent ourselves. I am one of four Ashkenazi children, proudly Jewish, and someday we too will become Ashkenazi history. Despite the threat of anti semitism in Paris I found solace in stitching my Jewish pride into a hat.

September 6, 2024