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From: R. Kovacs
Subject: The Bx code
Date: 8 Sivan 5781
Nu, this reminds me of something my father told me about Munkács.
When a convert joined the community, several born Jews would change some minor aspect of their observance to match the convert's customs. My father said it was the rav's idea, though my uncle claims it was older than that, something the chevra kadisha organized quietly. I do not know who is right.
The example my father gave: a man converted and joined the community. At his first seder with his new family, he wore a white kittel, as was his custom from wherever he had learned. But in Munkács, not everyone wore the kittel. So the next year, three or four families (my father's among them) began wearing white kittels at the seder too.
Now it was simply "what some people do." The kittel no longer marked him.
The privacy was collective, not individual. For Bx to work, we would need some born Jews to use it. Otherwise, as Rav Halevi says, it marks precisely what it is meant to conceal.
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