20 | JUNE 10 • 2021 

H

e’s a kippah-wear-
ing Jew from Oak 
Park and she’s a 
hijab-wearing Muslim from 
Dearborn — and the friend-
ship they have forged in the 
U.S. Air Force has a lot to do 
with religion.
Yosef (Yossie/Joe) 
Hochheiser and Maysaa 
Ouza are both captains in 
the Judge Advocate General 
(JAG) corps of the U.S. Air 
Force. For Hochheiser, 38, it’s 
a part-time gig as a member 
of the Air Force Reserves. 
But most of his workweek is 
spent as a civilian domestic 
violence magistrate judge in 
Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
In 2016, Hochheiser was 
doing his reserve duty at 
Youngstown Air Reserve 
Station in Ohio when he was 
asked to research the issue of 
providing a religious accom-
modation for a Muslim 
recruit who wanted to wear 
a hijab. Hochheiser himself 
had received a religious 
accommodation to wear a 
kippah when he joined up.
Ouza, the daughter of 
Lebanese immigrants, was 
about to graduate from the 
University of Toledo law 
school when she applied to 
be a JAG officer. She request-
ed a religious accommoda-
tion to wear the hijab, the 
headscarf that many Muslim 
women use to cover their 
hair. The Air Force told her 
she could request a religious 
accommodation only after 

going through officer train-
ing school, which she would 
have to do without the hijab. 
This she did not want to do. 
Hochheiser worked on the 
matter during one of his one-
week periods of Reserves 
duty and submitted a report 
that said more research was 
needed on the issue. Then he 
forgot about it. 
Meanwhile, Ouza turned 
to the American Civil 
Liberties Union, which in 
2015 had handled a case 
involving a Sikh man who 
needed an accommodation 
to wear a turban in the 
ROTC. A federal judge ruled 
that the Army could not 
deny him the accommoda-
tion.
When the ACLU pointed 
out the similarity of Ouza’s 
case, the Air Force reconsid-
ered and gave Ouza the reli-
gious accommodation before 
she commissioned. They also 
implemented a policy that 
should help them avoid such 
problems in the future. 

SEEDS OF FRIENDSHIP
In 2018, Hochheiser was reas-
signed to the 88th Air Base 
Wing at Wright-Patterson 
Air Force Base in Dayton. 
A few months later, he saw 
a piece produced for NBC’s 
Left Field about Muslims in 
the military. It focused on an 
active-duty Air Force JAG 
officer whose request to wear 
the hijab had led to a policy 
change. He thought it must 

Head coverings led Jewish and 
Muslim captains from Detroit 
to form a fast friendship.

Air Force 
Over-Head

BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

OUR COMMUNITY

Maysaa Ouza 
and Yosef 
Hochheiser

COURTESY OF YOSEF HOCHHEISER