![\"Alex](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/black-bg-2160x1200-2-1.jpg\")
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Alex Sinclair wore a kippah showing the Israeli and Palestinian flags for years, until he said a police officer took it from him and cut off the Palestinian flag in April 2026. Courtesy of Alex Sinclair<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Philissa Cramer<\/a><\/p>\n \n April 26, 2026\n <\/p>\n (JTA<\/a>) \u2014 Alex Sinclair had no idea what would follow when he posted a picture of his mutilated kippah to Facebook on Thursday.<\/p>\n Sinclair, who lives in central Israel, described being detained by police officers who told him that his kippah, which had both the Israeli and Palestinian flags woven in, was illegal. When he was released from their custody, he was allowed to take his kippah home \u2014 but only after the Palestinian flag was cut out, leaving him with roughly half a head-covering.<\/p>\n To Sinclair, a British-born writer and educator whose books include \u201cLoving the Real Israel: An Educational Agenda for Liberal Zionism,\u201d<\/a> the situation was galling, and not just because he had been accused of breaking a law that does not exist.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019d taken my possession, a religious ritual object, something that is very dear to my heart, and destroyed it,\u201d he wrote about the officer who returned his kippah. He added, \u201cThat was it. I walked home, shaken, angry, depressed.\u201d<\/p>\n A day after publishing his account of the encounter<\/a>, eliciting hundreds of almost universally supportive comments, Sinclair said he had not heard from anyone in the government about his Facebook post or the complaint he filed on the Israel Police website.<\/p>\n But he had gotten offers of legal aid; calls from left-wing politicians, including Yair Golan<\/a>; and even Shabbat flowers from a prominent liberal activist<\/a>. His phone had been ringing off the hook with calls from journalists, and someone he barely knows was planning a rally for outside the police station in Modiin where he was detained.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never experienced anything like this,\u201d Sinclair said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n The Israel Police has acknowledged the incident, saying publicly that a man had been detained after they were contacted about his kippah and had been released \u201cfollowing a clarification process.\u201d They said the official complaint about the incident prevented further comment.<\/p>\n Sinclair said he thought the image of the defiled kippah was resonant for Jews who instinctively associated it with centuries of antisemitism. But he said he wondered whether the depth of the response reflected something else, too.<\/p>\n After the ceasefire in the Iran war, Israelis were \u201cbeginning to be able to breathe a little bit and look above the parapet and just sort of see, OK, maybe we can start to think about the future in a way that we really weren\u2019t able to as a society for the past couple of years,\u201d he said. Now, the thought for many is: \u201cIf we are looking ahead, oh my God, is this what is in store for us?\u201d<\/p>\n The incident comes amid a broad crackdown on Palestinian symbols in public spaces, and allegations that police, who have come under the control of a far-right minister, are increasingly intimidating liberal activists.<\/p>\n Soon after being named national security minister in January 2023, Itamar Ben-Gvir told Israeli police officers<\/a> to exercise wide latitude in removing Palestinian national flags from public places in order to preserve public order. He characterized the flag as a terrorist symbol, even though it is legal in Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt cannot be that lawbreakers wave terrorist flags, incite and encourage terrorism, so I ordered the removal of flags supporting terrorism from the public space and to stop the incitement against Israel,\u201d he said at the time. Following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel later that year, the crackdown intensified even more.<\/p>\n During the same period, the police have been accused of using inappropriate force against people protesting against the right-wing government. Sinclair said he was concerned about the threats to liberal values in his chosen country.<\/p>\n \u201cThe job as a police officer is not to police people\u2019s political opinions,\u201d he said. \u201cThat happens in other countries that we don\u2019t want to become.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the hundreds of people responding to Sinclair\u2019s Facebook post were many who echoed that sentiment \u2014 even while saying they did not share his appreciation for the Palestinian flag. (Elsewhere in Israel and online, Sinclair drew more scorn.)<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I don\u2019t agree with your choice of kippa, I do agree you have every right to wear it,\u201d wrote one commenter. \u201cThis is awful and I\u2019m sorry you experienced it. And I hate that this is where we are now, that someone could be detained for something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi and member of the opposition in Israel\u2019s parliament, said in a statement that there was \u201csystemic madness\u201d within the Israel Police and that he believed a criminal investigation and civil lawsuit would be appropriate. He also called for introspection.<\/p>\n \u201cIf police officers had cut off a Jew\u2019s kippah in any other country in the world, there would have been an uproar here in Israel,\u201d Kariv wrote.<\/p>\n Sinclair said the kippah that was destroyed was not his first with the same design. After the wind blew away the first one, which he had custom-made by a popular Jerusalem vendor nearly 20 years ago, he ordered a replacement \u2014\u00a0that\u2019s how motivated he was to wear his values on his head.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a Zionist, and I believe in the Jewish people\u2019s right to self-determination in this part of their historic homeland. And I also think that the Palestinians are also people who have a right to self-determination in part of this place, which is also their historic homeland,\u201d Sinclair said.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the ironies of history, the same chunk of land ended up being a place where two peoples have a legitimate connection, and we have to figure that out,\u201d he continued. \u201cPeople from both sides who want to delegitimize or erase the other side forget about whether they\u2019re being nice or nasty; they\u2019re just not being true to history.\u201d<\/p>\n That was once a relatively widely held view among Israelis and Jews around the world. But decades of failed peace efforts, violent attacks on Israelis from Palestinian terrorists, and increasing extremism among both Jews and Arabs have caused a two-state solution to fall sharply out of favor<\/a> during that period.<\/p>\n Sinclair says he sees himself as a peace activist, though he called the term \u201cgrandiose\u201d and said, \u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of respect for people whose life is much more about the activism than mine.\u201d<\/p>\n What he is, he says, is a Jew who loves Israel and is scared for its future. His next book, out this fall, will tackle what he believes is \u201ca struggle for the soul of the Jewish people,\u201d a topic on which he has suddenly become an unwilling case study.<\/p>\n On one side, he said, are far-right extremists, including Ben-Gvir, who \u201cwant a kind of Judaism and an Israel which doesn\u2019t have a place for all kinds of things that feel very important to me,\u201d including egalitarianism, Palestinians and left-leaning politics. (That side, he noted, is currently advancing legislation<\/a> that would ban egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.) On the other, he said, are those who promote an Israel that \u201cis open and pluralist,\u201d one in which people tolerate people who practice Judaism in ways they would not and hold values they do not.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a struggle between these two versions of Judaism and versions of Zionism,\u201d Sinclair said. \u201cI very much hope that we\u2019ll win the struggle. I think it\u2019s not too late to win that struggle. \u2026 But it\u2019s not a slam-dunk. And we, the Jewish people, are in real trouble if we lose.\u201d<\/p>\n Sinclair believes his book could help turn that lofty vision into a how-to guide for Israeli liberals. But he also has more practical concerns,\u00a0like where to get another kippah. He isn\u2019t sure the vendor who made it before will be willing to do so again. And this time, it\u2019s not just him but many of his friends who say they are interested in getting their hands on one.<\/p>\n \u201cSome bright lefty entrepreneur,\u201d he joked, \u201chas got a big money-making opportunity there.\u201d<\/p>\n
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