This Is Not Your Bubbe’s Yarmulke

Image by Craig Caplan

By Anne Cohen October 23, 2014

Craig Caplan

Too lazy to sort through your parents’ kippah drawer? Now, you can print one — in 3D.

Per NPR:

Craig Kaplan, an associate professor in the Computer Graphics Lab at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, rarely leaves the house without his Panama hat in warmer weather.

He wanted to design a 3-D printed version of the traditional hat, but he decided to start with an easier shape to reproduce: a yarmulke, or kippah — a plate-shaped head covering worn by observant Jews.

“After that,” he says, “it was just a matter of working through the mathematics — programming and 3-D modeling to make these kippah designs a reality.”

And yes, before you ask, it is kosher. Caplan consulted with rabbis to make sure that his model could be worn worry-free by all members of the tribe (though as Heeb points out, why you would need one is a whole other story).

There’s a downside, however. As Caplan pointed out to NPR, “they don’t do as good of a job at concealing the aging Jewish male’s bald spot, as I can personally attest.”

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

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