Alex Sinclair says his wife told him someday a person would beat him up for wearing a kippah with and Israeli flag and a Palestinian flag that he got 20 years ago “as message of peace and mutual recognition.”
While that didn’t happen, Sinclair said that on April 23, while eating outdoors at a café in Modi’in, when a man called the police on him for wearing it and police told him they’d take him by force if he didn’t go willingly.
Sinclair said he did not resist.
Once taken to a cell by Israeli police, he said he was not allowed to call anyone and was ultimately told he was free to go without the yarmulka, and when he said it was important to him, a police officer cut off the part with the Palestinian flag, giving the remaining part back to him.
Sinclair, who made Aliyah from England in 1997, said he was surprised there was such a response online when he posted about it, and believes it touched a nerve because of the image of a torn kippah as well as concerns of free speech and free expression.
He said while he is not a lawyer, he believes there is nothing illegal about wearing his yarmulke or showing the Palestinian flag, though the police told him it was “incitement.” In 2023, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir ordered police to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces claiming it constitutes “identification with terrorism.”
Sinclair said he stopped wearing the yarmulke after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, but resumed putting it on his head sometime after the last hostages were returned.
“I understand it’s triggering image for some people,” Sinclair told the Journal. “I’m not naïve. There are terrible stories that have happened to people and it is the flag that Hamas marches under. Hamas is my enemy that I want to see destroyed. But it’s also the flag that Palestinians who want to live in peace with me march under, so it’s complicated.”
He said he’s filed a formal legal complaint and is speaking with a lawyer about possibly taking action.
Sinclair said one thing is hard to believe.
“It’s disturbing that the police see me as the enemy,” he said.
Online, some have posted that police should not impose on his freedom of expression, while others said his act of wearing a yarmulke with a Palestinian flag will upset people and is a means of getting attention and traumatizes people who only recently got to stop running to bomb shelters.
Asked his reasoning for wearing it, other than the idea of peace, he said it was a long story.
“I didn’t grow up wearing a kippah,” Sinclair said. “I got more religious in my early 20’s. When you walk around Israel with a kippah on, people associate you with an Orthodox kind of Judaism. I belong to an Egalitarian minyan. I have political views that are much farther to the left than most people who walk around with a kippah. I am Shomer Shabbat. I keep kashrut and halacha is important to me. I struggled with how to manage that. I love wearing a kippa spiritually. On the other hand I wanted to have the kippa be mine so I could own it and feel connected to my Jewish identity.”
“I love wearing a kippa spiritually. On the other hand I wanted to have the kippa be mine so I could own it and feel connected to my Jewish identity.”
He said that he comes from a Zionist family and had participated in “Birthright-style programs,” but when he met his Israeli wife, it clinched his making Aliyah. He said he doesn’t have the hubris to call himself a “peace activist” but does what he can.
A lecturer at Hebrew University and the author of the 2013 book “Loving The Real Israel: An Educational Agenda for Liberal Zionism,” Sinclair has also written two novels: “Perfect Enemy” and “Everybody’s Hero.”
Sinclair hopes there can be better Israeli leaders in the future but anyone who thinks he is pro-Hamas or believes there is a quick and easily solution hasn’t met him or read his writings.
“Hamas is my enemy,” Sinclair said. “Palestinian terrorism is my enemy. If there is going to be a two-state solution, it can’t happen tomorrow. Palestinians need to deradicalize and reform their educational curriculum. A two-state solution has to ensure Israel’s security. The desire for a two-state solution is not a simplistic, ‘let’s sit down and say kumbaya.’ It’s a statement that there are two people in this part of the world and the Jewish people have a right to self-determination here. I am a Zionist. And there is a Palestinian people that also have the right to self-determination. They’re not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere. We have to have a solution that gives voice to the aspirations of both people’s that doesn’t compromise Israel security. I believe it is still possible even though it obviously seems like a long way off right now.”
