Beards with Jewish roots compete internationally

JNS, August 21, 2017

Visitors to the Otto Weidt Workshop for the Blind Museum in Berlin often meet Haim Hoffmann when they enter. He always asks them to leave their backpacks at the reception desk before entering this former brush factory, which was used to save Jews during the Holocaust.

The visitors also notice Hoffmann’s weird beard.

“You should try that,” a Jewish tourist from Florida told her husband, pointing to Hoffmann’s strange sprout.

“It’s called the ‘Three-day Freestyle,’” Hoffman, the museum’s shift manager, says when talking about his scraggly hair growth. He should know.

Hoffman wears an “Imperial Beard” — the kind of mustache-beard that arches upward, in the style of the German emperor, Wilhelm. He’ll be defending the bronze medal at the 2017 World Beard and Mustache Championships (WBMC) in Austin, Texas, from September 1-3.

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