Israeli football league now allows kippa-wearing athletes

And speaking of sports and religion, or religious symbols, what goes in the USA doesn't necessarily go quite as easily in Israel.

A little while back we heard of the "Dayan Kippa", in which a football player (soccer) was punished for donning a kippa after scoring a goal. He was doing his own version of Tebowing, or the Ickey Shuffle.

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The issue of wearing a kippa while playing, not just celebrating, is now at the forefront of Israeli sports talk. A player, Yair Cohen-Tzedek, on the Maccabi Yafo team, a lower league team, has wanted to play with his kippa on. The league has said no.

Until recently. They recently reversed their decision

Cohen-Tzedek says it doesn't bother him if his wearing a kippa would cause Muslim players to want to wear a keffiyeh. If they want to, let them, though there is a difference as they are not obligated to and Cohen-Tzedek says he is.

after

Muslim players, on the other hand, have said that it is not part of their religion, but it is part of their tradition. While nobody has requested it until now, it seems as if they want to keep their options open and won't say anything clear one way or another about it. Mk Ahmed Tibi has said that he is not aware of any such request by a Muslim player anywhere in the world..

Despite their initial opposition and willingness to review the decision only after the conclusion of the current season, they quickly reversed that and decided to allow lower league players to play with a kippa, should they so desire.

And on Friday, right after the reversal was announced, Cohen-Tzedek played, with his kippa, and scored a goal, to help his team win.

You can see Cohen-Tzedek's goal in the following video...


Did the kippa help him score? I doubt it. Maybe he was "rewarded for his insistence on wearing it, I don't know. Either way, it was good of the league to allow it. If the head-covering isn't a disturbance or cause any sense of danger, there is no reason to disallow it, and allowing it opens the sport up to more religious participation - something the league has been trying to do for a long time...

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