 JANUARY 9 • 2020 | 15

ly wears a beret when trav-
eling in public rather than 
a kippah. He’
s been doing 
that for decades. “I guess I 
would have to psychoanalyze 
myself, but it’
s probably a bit 
of camouflage.”
He does wears a kippah 
when teaching at LTU or 
working out in the gym but 
has never felt uncomfortable. 
He’
ll get an occasional ques-
tion from a curious bystand-
er, but nothing offensive.
The only time he has 
considered concealing his 
Jewish identity is when he is 
traveling and putting on tallit 
for prayers in an airport. “It 
gives me an uncomfortable 
feeling, but I do it anyway,” 
he said. “Once I did it and 
a stranger came up to me. 
He was Muslim and told me 
about his father who taught 
Hebrew in Egypt and got in 
trouble for it. He said he was 
hopeful to see good relations 
between Islam and Judaism. 
That was nice.”

YEHUDAH (RYAN) 
HERTZ
Yehudah (Ryan) 
Hertz, 39, has 
experienced his 
fair share of curi-
ous questions and ignorant 
comments about his Jewish 
faith.
As a Chasidic Jew, he has 
felt “othered” in many situ-
ations, but only recently did 
he feel endangered in his 
own neighborhood.
A few weeks ago, Hertz 
and his wife, Batyah 
(Katharina), were walking 
home from shul with their 
two sleeping children in their 
Huntington Woods neigh-
borhood when a car pulled 
up slowly alongside them. 

Hertz recalls seeing a teenage 
boy roll down his backseat 
window and begin swearing 
and yelling at them.
“We look like the Chasidic 
family that we are — I’
m 
walking down the street 
wearing a black hat and my 
wife is wearing a sheitel,” 
Hertz said. “There’
s no other 
reason why somebody would 
have done that. 
“It was very strange and 
surreal to be two blocks 
from your house where you 
feel completely comfortable 
and safe. I have never expe-
rienced thinking that living 
here in the United States in 
my own neighborhood where 
I’
m walking home from shul 
that I’
m not necessarily safe 
to be who I am.”
Hertz says he general-
ly feels accepted in Metro 
Detroit but is now question-
ing how serious anti-Semi-
tism is and how it’
s going to 
evolve. 
The machete attack in 
Monsey occurred on the 
seventh night of Chanukah, 
prompting a discussion 
between Hertz and his wife 
on hiding one’
s Jewish identi-
ty when fear is detected.
“The Talmud says people 
should light the menorah in 
the doorway where it’
s visible 
from the outside, except for 
in times of danger,” Hertz 
said. “It led us to this conver-
sation about the menorah as 
a metaphor for how we do 
or don’
t appear Jewish. Our 
conclusion in the conversa-
tion, inspired by my wife, is 
that we should double-down 
and be even more proud.” 

JN staffers Shelli Liebman Dorfman, 
Jackie Headapohl, Allison Jacobs 
and Keri Guten Cohen 
contributed 
to this report.

