Well, this all depends on who you ask. Brothers Job, Abel and Jakob are not now and never were Amish (though we do consider them to be “honorary Amish”). The other three Brothers (“from a different mother,” as the saying goes) were raised Amish, however were not baptized as adults in the Amish faith. We are still “Amish,” however, the same way that if an individual raised Catholic or Jewish that is not practicing is still Catholic or Jewish.

No. This is a joke:

An Amish lady is trotting down the road in her horse and buggy when she is pulled over by a police man. The officer says, “Ma’am, I’m not going to ticket you, but I do have to issue a warning. You have a broken reflector on your buggy.”

She replies, “Oh, I’ll let my husband know as soon as I get home.”

“That’s fine,” the officer replies. “Another thing, ma’am. I don’t like the way that one rein loops across the horse’s back and around his testicles. I consider that animal abuse. That’s cruelty to animals. Have your husband take care of that right away.”

Later that day, the lady is home telling her husband about her encounter with the cop.

“Well, dear, what exactly did he say?”

“He said the reflector is broken.”

“I can fix that in two minutes. Anything else?”

“I’m not sure, something about the emergency brake.”

Yes, we do. It is a popular misconception that the Amish shun individuals that decide not to be baptized. That is not true. If an Amish person decides not to be baptized, his or her decision is accepted (though not usually approved of), and the family and community still accept that individual. If you are baptized and then leave the faith or get baptized into another faith, then you will most likely be shunned, but even then, it is a last resort. The Amish believe in forgiveness and will always try to bring an individual back to the faith before shunning him or her. They will also always welcome you back, even after being shunned, as long as you make a confession and apology.

Speaking for myself (Ezekiel), they are happy for me, because they know I have found something (playing music) that makes me happy and allows me to bring happiness to others. While they are not thrilled that I decided not to be baptized and would rather I was living back in the Amish community, they respect my decision and have never tried to dissuade me from doing what I love to do.

Obviously, yes. If we couldn’t, we would either be dead from dehydration or have to walk around with IVs providing us with the necessary fluids to survive.

Yes, we can, though, Brother Hezekiah has a little more trouble with it than most folks. If we were still practicing Amish, we would not be allowed to. HOWEVER, even practicing Amish people can ride in cars and buses but are forbidden to own one. The Amish can ride tractors on the farm though they must have metal tires instead of rubber to prevent them from being used for traveling long distances.

Yes.

No. We like our hats and need them to cover our heads. We have lost a handful of hats (well, actually more than a handful as a handful of hats would be just one hat) by letting people at shows wear them. Then we are hatless, which is not a good thing, as none of us have good hair. One time, Brother Ezekiel had his hat stolen at a show in New York. He was asked by a young lady in the audience if she could wear the hat, and he obliged, making her promise to return it. She didn’t. The passing of the hat was even captured on camera, shown in this image. If anyone knows where my hat is, I would love to get it back as it had been my hat for over two years, and I miss my hat. I have since obtained a new hat, but it doesn’t fit as well and tends to fall off of my enormous head.

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