A Kiss on the Kepi: What Heads and Hearts and Hands Were Meant For

The oldest hat, for the oldest head.

The Yiddish word for “head” is kepilach.

My mother, born to a Hungarian-American father and a Ukranian-American mother, grew up hearing a lot of Yiddish in the home. When my sisters and I were little, my mother retained what little Yiddish she remembered, and mixed and melded and swirled and swaddled it with English kiut-isms when she spoke to us…