Naftali Bennet is Israel’s first prime minister who wears a yarmulke. Along with all the weighty issues that have arisen in the wake of Israel’s new government, it seems like at least some people are wondering how Bennett keeps his yarmulke on his bald head, JTA reported. After all, all the usual methods such as bobby pins aren’t of any use to him. In 2013, when Bennett was just beginning his career in politics, he said on a comedy show that he uses a mixture of tape and gravity to keep his kippa on his head. But once, when he was speaking outdoors on a windy tape, he was out of tape and had to resort to using chewing gum instead. “I had to improvise,” he said. “So we MacGyvered it.” In all seriousness, Bennett actually uses tape to keep his yarmulke on, but not Scotch tape. Instead, he uses a product developed and sold by Chaim Levin, a 65-year-old bus driver who lives in a mostly Modern Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv. The product, developed in 2013, called the Kipa Keeper, consists of reusable hypoallergenic double-sided medical tape, which will adhere yarmulkes to even the baldest of heads. A pack of 40 costs 40 shekels, about $12.50, including delivery. “It was Yom Kippur, when everyone in the beit knesset bows down [to the ground] and I saw that 20 to 30% of the mitpallelim had their kippa fall to the floor,” Levin, himself a bald kippa-wearer, told JTA. “I realized I had to come up with an idea for kippas to stay on heads.” When Levin heard in 2015 that Bennett, then serving as the economy minister, used his product, he asked him to join him in a photo in the hope that it would boost sales. “It really helped,” Levin said. “There are still people who call them ‘Bennett’s stickers.’” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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