Here’s Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte laying a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance on Sunday, during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem.
But why is he wearing a yarmulke? It doesn’t look like he’s about to bench or say Shma Yisrael.
Will he take the yarmulke along to Ramallah, where he’ll advocate the uprooting of half a million Jews from their homes?
In my humble opinion, this is not so much a sign of respect as fetishism.
Back in 2009, Greek PM Antonis Samaras refused to wear a yarmulke at Yad Vashem. The ceremony’s organizers urged Samaras to honor the occasion, and offered to give him a hat instead, but he declined, and laid a wreath bareheaded.
In 2005, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, and former French President Jacques Chirac also refused to wear a yarmulke. Chirac, though, settled for a hat.
Maybe Erdogan didn’t want his picture with a yarmulke in the papers.