In an earlier question you said-
>>There is a source in Chazal for not turning over the beds nowadays. This is the Talmud Yerushalmi, Moed Katan 3:5, which says that if someone lives in a hotel (where he shares his room with others), he need not turn over his bed, because his neighbors might say that he is practicing witchcraft.
The Rosh (cited by the Tur, Yoreh Deah #387, and Shulchan Aruch 387:2) writes that we rely on this in Germany and France where turning over the beds is not carried out, since we live among non-Jews who come in and out of our houses all day.
So we cannot prove from the fact that turning over the beds is not performed nowadays that other matters of mourning also do not apply.<<
I am surprised the Yerushalmi would be relied upon because it is only talking about living in a hotel, not about being exposed to goyim per se. No one today would be thinking of witchcraft anymore st all. In any case there are other practices, such as wrapping the head, having relatives of the mourner also mourn. which are not more strange then doing kriya to be abandoned as practices required.
I agree with you about shoes. But isn't the halacha more interested in discomfort while walking on the street since in general people remove leather shoes in the house all the time?? What did they wear in ancient times instead of leather shoes on the street? In any case in our day non leather are not uncomfortable, but they didn't have thst kind of shoe in ancient times.
1) It seems to me that since the Yerushalmi states that someone who lives in a Jewish hotel does not have to turn over the bed because the neighbors might say he is practising witchcraft, then it would be a Kal v'Chomer that people living amongst Nochrim need not do it. It seems that when we refer to witchcraft, this also includes other behavior which might appear to be very strange.
2) The Gemara in Moed Katan (21a) lists matters which are forbidden to the mourner: working, bathing, anointing, relations, wearing shoes, and learning Torah.
Tosfos there (DH Elu) also discusses turning over the beds and wrapping the heads. It is clear from Tosfos that it is only these two practices which do not apply today, while all the other Halachos of mourning do apply.
3) Tosfos writes that the reason we do not do the head-wrapping nowadays is that it would look comical if we dress like Yishmaelim. It would have the opposite effect that we are looking for in Aveilus; mourning is an attempt to show grief and honor for the deceased, while wrapping the heads would merely be seen as a joke.
4) The Gemara (Yoma 78b) tells us that Rebbi Yehoshua ben Levi walked outside on Yom Kippur wearing a sandal made of reeds, or bulrush.
5) There is a dispute among contemporary authorities concerning comfortable, non-leather shoes on Yom Kippur. Some rule that since they are comfortable one should not wear them, while others maintain that it is only leather which is forbidden by the Halachah.
B'Hatzlachah,
Dovid Bloom