JTA-Israel's new prime minister may be the first person to put a ball of gum on his head before a public event.

Naftali Bennett, who took office this week, was the first prime minister in the country's history to wear kippa, a Jewish ceremonial headscarf (sometimes called a yarmulke or toque). Unlike his secular predecessors, he considers himself a religious Zionist and practices modern Orthodox Judaism, which requires men to cover their heads.

He is also bald. This made it a challenge to keep the small crochet disc on top of his head. The traditional methods of securing kippa-hairpins and metal hairpins-are of no use to Bennett.

However it still exists. No matter where Bennett is—in the Knesset, during a campaign, in a news interview—kippa is there, installed on his scalp, or sometimes on the thin layer of buzzing around his bald head.

Bennett appeared on a comedy talk show in 2013 when he was a freshman MP. He said he used a mixture of tape and gravity to keep the kippa in place.

But once, he recalled that he had to give a speech outdoors in the wind, and found that his tapes ran out. So he took a piece of gum (probably ABC) and used it to stick kippa on his head.

"I had to improvise," he said. "So we MacGyvered it."

Bennett does not use ordinary scotch tape. The adhesive he chose was a product invented and sold by Haim Levin in 2013. Haim Levin is a 65-year-old bus driver living in the suburbs of Tel Aviv's modern Orthodox Church.

The product is called Kipa Keeper and is made of reusable hypoallergenic double-sided medical tape that allows kipa to stick to the head with almost no hair. It is sold in a pack of 40, priced at 40 shekels, or about $12.50, including shipping. Levine declined to say how much he sells each year.

"כיפה Goalkeeper" המדבקה המקורית ששומרת את הכיפה על הראש. השר "נפתלי בנט" ראש מפלגת הבית היהודי. משתמש ומפרגן ל "כיפה-Goalkeeper".

Kipa Keeper • כיפה קיפר • המדבקה ששומרת את הכיפה על הראש Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2015

"It was Yom Kippur, and when everyone in the synagogue bowed [kneeled on the ground] and bowed to the ground, I saw 20% to 30% of the worshippers' kippah fall on the floor," Levin, he I am also a bald-headed kippa wearer, told the Jewish Telegraph. "I realized I had to come up with an idea to keep kippa on my head."

Levin can’t remember when Bennett started using his product-a source close to Bennett confirmed to JTA that the Prime Minister used it-but said he had contacted the future Israeli leader and hoped to improve Sales. In 2015, when Bennett was Minister of Economy, they took a group photo in the office. Levine told JTA that the last time Bennett ordered the product was a week and a half ago.

"It's really helpful," Levine told JTA about his connection with Bennett. "Some people still call them'Bennett's stickers'."

In Israel, the choice of kippa usually means religious and political identity, and Bennett's personal style—a small crocheted kippa—shows that he is a devout Zionist. In contrast, a black velvet kippa would identify him as Haredi, or extreme orthodox, while a larger crochet or knitted kippa may be more likely to stay on the bald head, favored by a small group of more devout settlers, openly Spirit and nationalism. The fact that Bennett's kippa is small and worn on the back of his head indicates that he is at the more "modern" end of the modern Orthodox community.

No matter how Bennett maintains it, Kippa is an important part of his identity and a symbolic transformation of Israel.

In the first few decades of the state, the ruling elite consisted of secular socialists from David Ben-Gurion's Mapai Party, the predecessor of today's Labor Party. Religious Jews—along with Jews of Middle Eastern descent and Arab Israelis—are usually excluded from positions of power in Israeli government and culture.

This situation began to change in 1977, when the right-wing Likud led by Menachem Begin mobilized a coalition of conservatives, religions, and Middle Eastern Jews to win power. In the settlement business that began after the Six-Day War in 1967, religious Zionist Jews had reason to unite.

Since then, religious Zionists (often espousing modern orthodoxy) have largely identified political rights, which have led the Israeli government for most of the past 45 years. Haredi Israelis have not always been recognized as Zionists, but in recent years they have also been attracted by the Israeli right wing led by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, like most of his male predecessors, wears kippa in some ceremonies and religious places, but not often.

When Bennett entered politics in 2012, he took charge of the Jewish House of the Israeli religious Zionist party, aiming to expand his staunch right-wing message to attract people other than Orthodox Israelis.

Since then, he has been trying to represent the integration between Jews of various religious beliefs, even though he pursued right-wing agendas in both domestic and Israeli settlement policies. In a 2019 Facebook post, Bennett defined his personal religious practice as "Israeli Jews."

"Israeli Jews can refer to religion, tradition, secular, Haredi nationalists or Haredi," he wrote. "Israeli Jews will not judge each other based on how strict they observe mitzvot. Israeli Jews love and accept every Jew."

Bennett described his personal religious rituals in the same way. He was born in a non-Orthodox family and became more sensitive to his own will. His wife Gilat was secular when they met, and he said that during the years they lived in New York City, she was attracted to religious Judaism.

Once, he used his kippa as a political choice. Bennett wrote last year that when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, he had stopped wearing kippa for several years. But he felt that because the assassin of Rabin was an Orthodox Jew, religious groups were collectively accused of the murder. So, in order to make a statement, Bennett wrote, "I put Kippa back on my head."

Today, he always wears kippa and lives a religious life. Nevertheless, he still wrote that his family made the same small compromises as many religious and secular couples in Israel.

When they observe Judaism and the Sabbath at home, his wife's parents drove to where they were on the Sabbath, which is prohibited by Jewish law. When they eat at his in-laws’ house, they don’t check in advance how strict the kitchen is for kosher.

Bennett was humiliated by Haredi politicians for allegedly pretending to be a religious Jew while compromising his private religious activities. But sources close to Bennett said the prime minister sees his personal example as a bridge across Israel’s cultural and religious differences.

Bennett believes that "at least in theory, crocheted kippa is and should be the middle ground," the source said. "He has a very firm belief in the meaning of religious beliefs, so when people try to outflank him for not being religious, it doesn't scare him."

Levine said that Bennett’s use of his products was “a good thing,” although he added that whether the prime minister wears a kippa has no effect on him. He said he has not yet decided whether Bennett is suitable for the job, and that Bennett made political concessions in order to lead a narrow, irritable and controversial coalition.

But Levin is proud of Bennett being a customer. Although he said he could not share a copy of the Prime Minister’s recent receipt, he promised Bennett to pay the full price.

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