‘Yarmulke Guy’ Seeks Peace, Love and Understanding Amid Caucus Frenzy

DES MOINES, Iowa — The line, almost exclusively male and on the sunset side of the 50s, began to form early ahead of an appearance by former President Donald Trump at the Iowa Events Center here.

“Audience members on one side of the rope, media on the other,” said the tall man at the door in a soft voice that still conveyed the bearing of authority.

And it was at that moment, as Trump supporters and reporters briefly parted and headed to their respective corners, that we saw him.

Short of stature but brimming with enthusiasm, Marc Daniels smiled as passersby approached.

“You want a yarmulke?” he said.

“One of my books, maybe?” he added while pulling a soft cover volume from the pocket of what appeared to be a butcher’s apron.

In his outstretched hand, he held a red yarmulke with small gold letters that spelled out Trump’s name and a message in Hebrew.

But as one drew near, one quickly noticed Daniels was rather nondenominational in his politics.

On his chest were campaign-style buttons for Nikki Haley and even President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Before one could get a word in edgewise, he was already sizing up a visitor.

“You want a Haley yarmulke?” he asked. “A DeSantis?” 

“I’ve got one for everybody,” he said.

The Trumpers, anxious to get inside and find a seat, appeared to view Daniels as something of a curiosity, but to the clutch of reporters who now gathered around him he was absolutely riveting.

Finally, one stepped forward and asked the obvious question.

“What … are … you … doing?” he said.

“My name is Marc Daniels,” he said, careful to spell it out so that everyone would know he spelled Marc with a “c.”

“And I am the yarmulke guy.”

Born and raised in Des Moines, Daniels quickly explained that he now lives in Springfield, Illinois.

“But I came up from Springfield for this,” he said. 

“So Trump means a lot to you?”

“Are you Jewish?” Daniels asked.

“Catholic,” his interlocutor said.

“Are you familiar with Kabbalah and its relationship to the Torah?” he asked.

There was a nodding of the head.

“Okay, so basically, I’m a person who doesn’t like how Q-Anon and conspiracy theories are destroying politics,” Daniels said.

“At the same time, I’ve been studying Kabbalah for 20 years, and I started making parallels between the wisdom of Kabbalah and pure ‘non-hate,’ and everything that gets nasty in politics.

“At the same time, when we look at the wisdom of Kabbalah, there’s also an aspect of it that says we should use the negativity to fuel the positive,” he said.

The Jewish Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between the unchanging, eternal God and the mortal, finite universe. 

In essence it forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism.

“For me, these things form the basis of what I do,” he said. “That’s why I give yarmulkes to all the candidates … because to me, it’s more important to make things kosher than to be on one side or another.

“Look at this one,” he said, pulling a Biden-Harris button from his apron.                                                                   

“You see, it references the fable of the donkey and his driver, who disagree on the best route to their barn,” he said. “On the way, [the] donkey learns to listen and everything works out alright.”

“So you’re basically spreading a little philosophy with a healthy dose of humor?” his interviewer asked.

“Basically, it is a political comment for all candidates,” Daniels said.

“So what do you hope their takeaway will be as they move on from a state where they’ve had a lot of personal contact with voters?”

“Well, let me put it this way,” Daniels said. “A lot of people back in the day thought of the government as evil and of Moses as good. But Pharaoh was considered, by some, to be as high, spiritually, as God. So again, you have the negative being a force for positive change.

“People will ask me, ‘So why are things so much worse now than they were before?’” he said.

“To which you say …”

“To which I say, one of the biggest deals about Trump is that he revealed that there is a sort of latent antisemitism and racism out there that nobody was talking about before. And you can’t correct what you don’t know, right?”

With that, Daniels broke off in the middle of a thought and began rummaging in his pockets before pulling out his soft cover “display” copy of “Make America Kosher Again: The Political Talmud for Progressive Candidates.”

“Trump actually signed a yarmulke of mine,” he said.

Flipping expertly to the right page, Daniels pointed to a photo that did indeed show one of his yarmulkes bearing the intense, highly distinctive signature of the former president.

“So what is this lettering below the candidates’ printed names on your yarmulkes?” his interviewer asked.

“Oh, what this says is [he reads the Hebrew], which means ‘Great Nation.’ You know, Trump was talking about Abraham Lincoln the other day — Abraham and Abraham — and it was God, in our tradition, who told Abraham that someday he would be the father of a great nation,” Daniels said.

“I still believe Trump has the possibility to change his heart. I always think that people can change,” he said.

“You know, I should mention that I gave Nikki Haley a yarmulke as well, and she also signed it,” Daniels continued. “A week later, she put a yarmulke on her website … which I thought was a very nice stance against antisemitism.”

“So you’re having an influence?”

“Hey, one guy can change the world,” Daniels said.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue