When Rabbis Wore Dog Collars

A chazzan I knew burst his collar stud every Friday night when he reached a high note at the end of L'chah Dodi. One day when I was in a hurry to meet my fiancée at Piccadilly Circus I had no time to replace my dog collar with an ordinary one leaving a hospital I had been visiting, and Marian was not impressed.

To officiate outside the synagogue I took my cap and gown (aka canonicals) with me. Any other way I would be regimentally undressed. The kit came with me to Sydney, though there the weather required lightweight garb. I had the uncharitable view that some of the rabbis were lightweights, but they didn't wear caps and gowns anyway.

I never agreed with the view that canonicals were Chukkat Hagoy, aping the gentiles, After all, the Temple in Jerusalem had priestly canonicals, and histories of Jewish costume depict rabbinical garb of many centuries. If academics, professionals and the military can wear distinctive garb, then why not rabbis? Note the Sephardi Chief Rabbis of Israel have gorgeous robes, and Charedi rabbis have distinctive kapotes.

In Hampstead, the chazzan and I wore dog collars with our caps and gowns on Shabbat and festivals. We abandoned the dog collar on Friday nights but attendance was so poor that no one noticed. We gave up the collar for good from first day Pesach and found the shul full of mutterings, not of prayer, but amazement at ministerial effrontery. That summer was hot and the man who was painting our house complained that his neck was getting burnt. I said, "I have just the thing for you", and I never saw my dog collar again.

I wore canonicals in Sydney throughout my years there, though for state occasions outside the synagogue, I put on the ultimate Jewish uniform – a big tallit. I left my black canonicals in Australia. I still have my High Holyday white cap and gown but as a back-bencher I now use a kittel. When I glance at the portrait of myself in white canonicals that hangs at the Great Synagogue with a copy in our home in Jerusalem, I not only see the canonicals but the look on my face that says, "What do you want of my life?" For that portrait I did not wear black robes because the artist, Robert Hannaford, said they made me look like a magpie.