Search

‘YEmulkas’: Former Kanye fans turn his unwanted merchandise into Jewish skullcaps

A former fan of the rapper, who never wants to wear Yeezy sneakers or t-shirts again, found a new, Jewish use for them.

By JNS

The Talmud recommends taking the evil inclination into the Jewish study hall. Two Australians have found a different way to sanctify the destructive.

Antoinette Barbouttis, of Sydney, wanted nothing more to do with her collection of clothing featuring one of the most prominent antisemites, Ye (formerly Kanye West).

So, she and her friend John Safran, a Jewish-Australian filmmaker and writer, brainstormed how to make kosher lemonade out of hateful lemons.

Safran’s unique idea? Turn the several Ye shirts and a dozen Yeezy shoes into yarmulkes.

“You’re not even breaking our spirit. We’re responding with some weird kind of Jewish self-deprecation by saying, no, we’re here, we’re not tucking in our Stars of David, just because there are spells of antisemitism and people are trying to intimidate us into hiding,” Safran told Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service.

After Barbouttis learned of Ye’s hateful rants last fall, she decided she was done. “As soon as it was antisemitism, I thought, that’s next level-kind of dangerous,” she said. “I’m not into that.”