Why is this kipa different from all other kipot?
Newark shop boasts yarmulkes made with union labor
Mitch Cahn of Montclair at his Newark company, Unionwear, one of the few union shops left in the country that produces baseball caps. His line of yarmulkes are part of the Kosher Kippot campaign launched in 2007 by the Progressive Jewish Alliance that encourages people to buy fair trade and sweatshop-free kipot. Photo courtesy Mitch Cahn.
Is your kipa kosher? If it was made in Mitch Cahn’s Unionwear shop in Newark, it is. If it was made somewhere else, according to the Progressive Jewish Alliance, the chances are slim.
Of course, it all depends on your definition of kosher.
The PJA, a California organization founded 10 years ago to respond to the issue of sweatshop labor, launched its “Kosher Kippot” campaign in 2007 to encourage the purchase of union-made and fair-trade yarmulkes.
In addition to Cahn’s kipot, PJA also steers people to woven kipot from Guatemala (www.mayaworks.org) and fabric kipot from South Africa (www.globalgoodspartners.org).
“Jewish law and ethical standards should apply when we’re buying a T-shirt or a kipa, the same as obeying the laws of kashrut while we are eating,” said Sarah Leiber Church, a PJA program director. “I would like it to be as unacceptable in the Jewish community to buy a sweatshop-made kipa as it is to eat a pepperoni pizza.”
The Kosher Kippot effort followed the successful PJA Kosher Clothing campaign, which urged people to avoid purchasing sweatshop-produced T-shirts and other clothing.
But T-shirts are one thing; kipot another. Where exactly can you buy a kosher kipa?
“Very few places that make kipot are union,” said Arieh Lebowitz, communications director at the Jewish Labor Committee. In fact, he said, he knows of only one.
Enter Mitch Cahn, 41, who lives in Montclair and belongs to Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield. He happens to run one of the few union-shop baseball cap manufacturers in the country, according to a spokesperson from UNITE HERE, the union his workers belong to.
And now he runs what may be the only unionized kipa shop in the country.
‘Making headway’
It all started with a phone call from Leiber Church, who asked Cahn if he would consider manufacturing kipot for the campaign.
He loved the idea. In a recent conversation, he compared it to the current uproar over the kosher meat industry since the raid on the Agriprocessors slaughterhouse and meat-packaging factory in Iowa in May. The company was charged with, among other offenses, employing illegal aliens under substandard work conditions. “A lot of the concerns about kosher meat should apply to those who work in plants and factories,” Cahn said.
Even in 2007, he saw the idea as a long-term investment. Although the volume of kipot business he does would appear not to warrant the effort that he puts into manufacturing them, Cahn said, he believes that in the long run, consumers will appreciate his better labor practices and the environmentally sound fabrics that go into the kipot.
Cahn founded NJ Headwear in 1992 in Jersey City and in 2001 moved the factory to Newark, where it is located on Third Avenue and Third Street, just off Bloomfield Avenue. Although the corporate name never changed, by 1998, Cahn had unofficially adopted the name Unionwear. Its website is www.unionwear.com. The company sells 20,000 baseball hats and canvas tote bags every year.
Last year, Cahn added the PJA’s kosher kipot to his merchandise line. He sells about 300 every week, he said. That amounts to about two weddings or b’nei mitzva each week — not including the 1,000 “Obamicas” he produced for Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters in Florida, complete with the “O” sunrise logo embroidered onto the button at the top of the kipa.
Cahn actually produced kipot once before — but as a gag, not for sale. In 2001, he married a native of Boston. For the wedding, he produced a few hundred kipot, some with Red Sox logos on the button, the rest bearing the Yankees insignia. They caused such a stir among his guests that he agreed to produce limited-run special-occasion kipot for relatives and friends.
His sense of humor came through in an e-mail conversation with NJJN when he offered his well-researched explanation of how kipot came to be used by Jews. “I believe the origin of the yarmulke was as sunscreen for Jewish pattern baldness,” Cahn wrote.
Today, the line of Unionwear kipot sport the logos of scores of teams embroidered onto the button, as well as custom designs. The kipot come in 80 colors and fabrics ranging from hemp — Cahn’s personal favorite and his best-seller — to organic cotton, twill, silk, microfiber, and faux suede. The kipot cost $7.95 each or, in bulk, $3.25-$3.70.
Cahn does not sell direct to the public, only through party planners or at www.justiceclothing.com, a Maine-based cooperative selling union-made clothing that works with PJA.
Not buying from Cahn doesn’t necessarily mean your kipa isn’t kosher, but Leiber Church said it is difficult to know. She acknowledged that there are, for example, hand-embroidered kipot made by women’s cooperatives in Israel. But in general, she said, kipot are made in factories that do not employ union workers.
“It’s not a question of finding the bad apple,” she said. “It’s really about finding places where workers are making headway. Rather than rail against giant companies, we just present cream-of-the-crop alternatives.”
