Home Is Where the Hat Is

Image by EDMON J. RODMAN

By Edmon J. Rodman September 23, 2009

A little short of green this Sukkot? Do rising sukkah construction costs have you down?

Image by EDMON J. RODMAN

Maybe you don’t have the space for a sukkah. Or due to a total lack of engineering skills, your shaky chateau is just not happening.

In this Season of our Joy, don’t be left out. Instead, use your head.

You can build a temporary temple for your temples: Make yourself a sukkah hat.

In a few easy steps and for a couple of bucks, you can green up and get street ready for Judaism’s annual fall festival.

Right after Yom Kippur, many folks begin to construct their sukkahs. They get out the hammer, wrench or power screwdriver. You can begin then, too. But the only tool you’ll need is a glue gun.

Start with the hat. Any old baseball cap will do. You will also need some Popsicle sticks, a couple of pipe cleaners and some fake foliage. A trip to your corner dollar store should cover it.

So heat up your glue gun — and get into a wearable sukkah.

First, glue the four corner posts — the Popsicle sticks — to the hat. (Relax, you don’t need a tiny mezuza). Then glue on crossbeams in the front and back (Do this part for the kids). Attach pipe cleaners to the posts, across the front and to the back. For the roof, twist a few cleaners across the top. Add some netting for walls, a few leaves, miniature hanging fruit and personal khazeray, or junk, and you’re ready to party.

Where to wear your sukkah hat? I originally designed the hat for friends to wear at home. But now it’s time to go public. Wear yours on the street, at synagogue, at school. And if you dare — wear it to work.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO