Yarmulke Is at Center of Bias Claim : Complaint: Mail carrier accuses Postal Service of anti-Semitism for insisting that he wear his uniform headgear over his skullcap.

A mail carrier is accusing the Postal Service of anti-Semitism for insisting that he cover his yarmulke while delivering mail in Pacific Beach.

Postal officials deny they are discriminating against Howard Singer, 51, of La Jolla. They say they are upholding their “corporate image” by requiring him to cover the skullcap with an official postal hat in public.

“I want to know why people of the Jewish faith are being treated differently. Here’s our own government practicing anti-Semitism,” said Singer, who has filed a complaint with the federal government over the Postal Service’s uniform policy.

For more than a year, Singer and the Postal Service have been awaiting a ruling on his complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The commission’s ruling “will probably set the standard, whatever the outcome,” said Larry Dozier, spokesman for the Postal Service’s communications department in Los Angeles.

The dispute between Singer and the Postal Service began about two years ago when a supervisor told Singer not to wear his yarmulke uncovered. Singer, who describes himself as a Reform Jew leaning toward Conservative, wears his yarmulke almost all the time.

Orthodox Jews wear their yarmulkes almost always. Typically, Conservative Jews wear them at least occasionally, and Reform Jews rarely wear them.

Singer said he was put on paid leave between late May and early September this year after a supervisor at the La Jolla post office, where Singer spent his postal career until last spring, told Postal Service officials that Singer assaulted her. He denies the allegation and said it stems from the yarmulke dispute.

Singer said that in an agreement reached between the National Assn. of Letter Carriers and the Postal Service, he was relocated to the Pacific Beach post office.

The letter carriers union and postal officials declined comment. Postal officials, including San Diego district manager Margaret Sellers, said they will not comment on Singer’s situation because of the pending EEOC ruling.

A 12-year letter carrier, Singer points out that members of other religions are allowed to wear religious jewelry, such as crosses, while delivering mail; not to mention the letter carriers who have worn Santa Claus hats around Christmastime.

“If (Singer) wants to wear the Star of David on a chain around his neck, we don’t have a problem with that,” local Postal Service spokesman Ken Boyd said.

Santa hats violate the uniform regulation, officials say, but are tolerated by some post office managers.

Boyd said that letter carrier regulations call for uniforms to be “standardized because that’s part of the corporate image we want to provide to our customers.”

Exceptions have been made for some letter carriers who wanted to wear religious garb. A spokesman with the Postal Service headquarters in Washington said that about a year ago a Sikh was allowed to wear a turban in public because it was required by his religious faith and it could not be covered by a postal cap.

Local postal officials maintain that the uniform code does not interfere with Singer’s religious need to cover his head in the presence of God because there’s nothing in Judaism that says a yarmulke must be used to cover one’s head.

Singer can wear the yarmulke, officials say, so long as he covers it with a postal hat when he is in public. The only headgear that the uniform code allows are Postal Service hats or helmets.

“The uniform policy with headgear is the same nationwide, though I’m sure there have been exceptions made based on case-by-case merits,” said the Postal Service’s Dozier. “This (Singer’s federal complaint) will probably lead to a policy of acceptance of nothing but the official (Postal Service) headgear.”

Officials at the Washington headquarters of the Postal Service, which was weaned off taxpayer dollars years ago, say their corporate uniform code is designed to let the public know what a U.S. mail carrier looks like.

“The real reason behind this (dress code) is that the public needs to know that it’s a legitimate carrier picking through their mailbox,” said Lou Eberhardt, a spokesman for the Postal Service headquarters in Washington.

Singer has touched on a sensitive issue, civil liberties activists say: whether a quasi-governmental agency such as the Postal Service can decide whether or how religious clothing can be worn.

“Is the Postal Service setting itself up as juror and judge of an employee’s religious views?” asked Morris Casuto, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in San Diego.

“The corporate image that the Postal Service is conveying is of this large, insensitive entity that is beating up on one guy for no reason at all. It’s an image of David versus Goliath. One creates a positive image through humanity, not through regimented appearances,” Casuto said.

Linda Hills, executive director of the San Diego chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Singer’s case “may not rise to the level of a free exercise of religion claim because it’s OK in a religious sense for (Singer) to cover his yarmulke with another cap.”

She said the Postal Service could be more flexible in its policies. “I don’t see, however, why in this case the post office wouldn’t lean in the direction of religious tolerance and let him wear the yarmulke.”