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According to this answer, wearing a toupee without a kippa on top may pose a problem of maris ayin.

My question is: Suppose the toupee-wearer has no distinctive Jewish features other than wearing a kippa. In this case then, nobody would know he was Jewish unless he is in an area where people know him. Suppose he's in an area where nobody knows him. Would it still be maris ayin? If so, why?

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  • I realize you're not asking "should he?" but "would it qualify as marit ayin", but assuming that his Judaism won't come out seems risky. He'll never make a bracha, order only coffee in a restaurant, disappear early on a winter Friday, etc? These could all come up in the context of, say, going to a technical conference far from home.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 16:17
  • @MonicaCellio, I'm not necessarily talking about going through his whole life like that. Just let's say he wants to go to the park for a few hours with his toupee on but doesn't want to wear a kippa on top of it.
    – jake
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 16:20
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    Yeah, I realize you don't mean always -- besides, in that case people would come to know him and the premise of the question wouldn't apply. I'm just wondering whether you can really correctly predict that it won't come up somehow; I've sometimes been surprised by contexts where my Judaism came up with strangers. (Example: at a conference where I ate only salads, a fellow attendee noticed and asked if I was a vegetarian. I could have dodged, but it was easier to just say "no, kosher". If I were the man in your question, would I, in that instance, have thought about the absent kipa?)
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 16:43
  • Isn't this a duplicate?
    – Adam Mosheh
    Commented Jul 23, 2012 at 14:09
  • @AdamMosheh Of the other toupee question? How? that one doesn't address maris ayin at all.
    – HodofHod
    Commented Jul 23, 2012 at 14:14

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There is a gemara in Beitzah 9 that brings a shitta that "Afilu b'chadrei chadarim" even in the the innermost room maris ayin applies even when alone. The Rambam paskans like that in hilchos shabbas 22:20.The Shulchan Aruch OC 301:45 paskens like that as well.

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    IIRC, the acharonim debate the ramifications of this rule. I believe that the S'dei Chemed maintains that it only applies to things that Chazal specifically banned because of maris ayin, like almond milk with meat (I think that was one of their things). Other things that we say are assur because they fall into the generalization of maris ayin might not have this rule apply to them.
    – jake
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 17:23
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    Just to Sam and Jake's exchange, Rabbi Jeremy Wieder, a Rosh Yeshiva at YU, explicitly applied the S'de Chemed's distinction le'maaseh in response to a question I asked of him.
    – user7077
    Commented Sep 21, 2014 at 15:54

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