I started thinking he was ripping off my hat. I put a comment on my blog how only "good guys" could wear that kind of hat.

Now, I see he's playing the "redeemed by God" card that all criminals start to play. "You can't send me to jail - I believe in God now. Honest!"

*Sigh.*

When I first saw that photo of Jack Abramoff, I thought, "He's religious?!" While I had been following the news story, I don't have TV and had never seen a picture of him before.

This past week, as I took note of the media's gleeful interpretation of his hat and coat as being gangster, I was surprised by how few people knew the religious Jewish look when they saw it. As an ex-city girl, I can tell you that in New York, for instance, anyone who has been to the lower east side would recognize that hat immediately. Or parts of Brooklyn. Or been to 47th Street. Or who has simply ridden the subway, when you come down to it. Actually, now that I think about it, how did all the New Yorkers in the media not know that hat? Are people not looking at each other anymore?

It made me aware of how, even with the highspeed efficiency of the internet, there are still pockets of culture in our society that remain largely invisible to most.

I was sad when I saw that hat. While not observant myself, I have friends who are. I feel sad that Abramoff's religiousness will forever be linked with his unlawful behavior.

Dunno, Stephen, I made him for an extra who had just got the flick from the set of Mullholland Falls. More a cheap punk, than the brains of the outfit.

Very interesting observation. This article, thanks for it.

However, as to the last line about shaming the name of G_d... maybe, don't worry about it. Isaiah 20: "You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ear has not been open. Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth. For my own name's sake I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you, so as not to cut you off. See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another." (Forgive the unpoetic rendering.)

The hat in the picture is, as far as I know, NOT a Borsalino. Borsalinos are stiffer looking, the brim is straighter. It doesn't look like anything I have seen on guys who normally wear the Black suits here in New York.

I interpreted his look as that of an Orthodox guy who is covering his head while not trying to stand out too much (hence also seeing him in his starched business suit and a baseball cap. Only Orthodox Jews do that.

Pseudo-exegeses about how current events somehow relate to to the tenets and/or headwear fashions of a given faith are just tedious, not to mention misfocused, and Salon's editors ought to know better than to publish them. Can't all you religious people just shut the fuck up for, oh, about a century? -- and fall back into your tents and temples and churches and mosques, and be happy with what you have, and let the rest of us seculars go about our living and dying, and let the world settle down for a change? Yes, I know it's far too much to ask... but can I also state that many, many, many of us are sick of hearing about antiquated religious beliefs? We're bored, we're scared, we're alive, your various dogmas offer us no comfort, and we wish you'd all just shut up.

As a Jew I have never understood the way some other Jews (observant or not) leave out the "o" in God. Yes, I understand that we don't pronounce the the four-letter name of God and substitute Adonai (Lord) for it wherever YHVH appears in texts.

But there is no matching taboo in English about saying or writing "God." And more curious still, G-d or G_d doesn't in any way substitute for saying or thinking or writing God because it's impossible to look at that odd construction and not think, say, or read God. It's a very odd affectation.

As for Abramoff wearing his hat? He's ashmed now, he says, but he should have been ashamed when he was bilking people and it shouldn have stopped him. And while he may be frum (I don't know and I don't care), I've seen plenty of file footage of him not even wearing a mini-kipa. For all his frumheit, he's a rank crook.

His religiosity is w-rthless.

Abramoff may dress like an observant Jew but he doesn't behave like one. He needs to go to jail for a very long time. He is a thief.

Thank you, Mr. Hirsch, for explaining the meaning of the Borsalino. I was going to begin referring to Jack Abramoff as "Jackie the Hat" on my blog. Maybe I won't do that now. Regardless of my contempt for Mr. Abramoff, I will respect the religious symbolism of his hat.

It is a shame, though, that whatever respectability the man retains rests entirely with his headgear. All this personal and political destruction over something as fleeting as money - what a waste.

Beautifully written and informative.

What a shame that for Mr. abramoff and too many others, religous piety is manifested in their clothing styles and not their behavior.

Ummm.....perhaps the hat is worn as a ploy to gain the support and sympathy of people like Stephen Hirsch. Looks like the strategy is working.

I believe that Abramoff grew up in a secular household and became devout as a young adult.

Religious appearances can be deceiving, I suppose, even to the initiated. Stephen Hirsch believes Jack Abramoff to have been raised "frum from birth"; Michael Crowley's "A Lobbyist in Full" in the May 1, 2005 New York Times Magazine tells a different story. Abramoff stems from a nonobservant Jewish family living in Beverley Hills, Crowley states; at the age of 12, Abramoff's life was changed by a screening of "Fiddler on the Roof." Crowley then quotes him, "I made the decision that I would become religious in order to preserve the faith in our family." Rushing out to buy books on Judaism, Abramoff's path to frumheit was largely self-discovered. Seems like his reading program was somewhat deficient in ethics though...