Jerusalem Exhibit on Head Covering 

JOFA members who attended the 2002 conference will remember the exhibit of a photo essay by Na’ama Batya Lewin entitled “Ervah: Hidden Sensuality” which made clear that hair covering, a practice designed to preserve modesty, is today, one of the most public displays of religious observance and identification for Jewish women. Some of the photographs of the photographer herself wearing a variety of head coverings as she visited different Orthodox communities in New York were included in the Summer 2006 JOFA JOURNAL issue.

In an exhibit in Jerusalem this year, eight artists – six women and two men – focused on different aspects of head covering for Jewish women and explored issues of identity, Jewish law, feminism and freedom of choice. The exhibit, held at the Lifschitz Teachers College, was entitled “Glu-yah” and included works in a variety of media including painting, video, sculpture and photography. The exhibit encompassed a range of views: some pieces reflected a celebration of head covering as a declaration of personal choice as well as of required piety while others were more challenging, and questioned the role of head covering for religious women in contemporary society.

“Women in Black and White” by Sigal Adelman comprised a series of 12 photographs: on the top row, six women with head coverings, and in the bottom row the same women without them. It was hard to recognize that the pictures were of the same women, and the series raised many questions, including: How does head covering change a woman? What is the relationship between secular and religious women?

A painting by Hanna Goldberg showed a woman whose head covering had been replaced by a transparent plastic bag, suggesting that head covering can be something that strangles a woman’s freedom. A video by Pnina Geffen explored the halakha of head covering and described the ambivalent positions and tensions felt by married Orthodox women today who do cover their hair.

Sadly, the exhibit became mired in controversy when hesder yeshiva students, who had classes in the building, objected to the pictures of women on the walls. As a “consequence”, all the representational images of women from the exhibit were taken down on the two days every week when the hesder boys were studying there, even though it was accepted that all the depictions were of heads, not of women’s bodies and that all the depictions were “modest”.

Interestingly, one of the women shown in a photograph was Rabbanit Kapah, the prominent Jerusalem personality known worldwide for her piety and acts of hesed. In the text accompanying her photograph, the Rabbanit wrote that, “In Yemen, even before marriage, as small girls we covered our hair like Arabs – it was forbidden that one hair should be seen; from the beginning kissui rosh was a regular thing for me. I even go to sleep with my head covered. I cannot take it off, it is impossible…even when I am alone in the house. That’s the way we were born, that’s the way we grew up, that’s the way we live.” Rabbanit Kapah herself saw nothing forbidden in the exhibit at all and was against any of the pictures being taken down.

The fact that this exhibit which the organizers had hoped would serve as an invitation for conversation among women and between religious and secular sectors of society became so controversial within the college where it was located, underlines how emotionally charged issues of women’s clothing, appearance, and head covering remain. In the words of Jerusalem art historian, David Sperber, “The students and rabbis were interested in keeping women entirely hidden from the public eye, judging any feminine representation as inappropriate. Bringing up the dilemmas concerning head covering posed a threat to the yeshiva boys. The whole episode demonstrated the vast gap between the feminist statements of the exhibitors and the world of ‘mainstream Orthodox males.’”

Jewish Sumptuary Laws and Dress Regulations

Through the ages, Jewish communities imposed restrictions on dress to prevent feelings of envy on the part of poor Jews, to lessen jealousy and hostility from nonJews, and to avoid the fashions of non-Jews. Specific restrictions were placed on men’s garments as well as women’s, and on ostentation in banquets and limitations on other forms of entertainment such as dancing, gambling and card playing. Many of the restrictions were issued as takkanot at rabbinical synods from the thirteenth century on. The translations of the texts of a number of these regulations are given in the magisterial work, “A History of Jewish Costume” by AngloJewish scholar, Alfred Rubens. These regulations are very detailed and give us an idea of Jewish life at the time as there are often complete listings of clothing, types of wigs and jewelry permitted or prohibited with exceptions mainly for brides and for the women accompanying them to the huppah.

Women’s cloaks which have already been made with open sleeves and are lined with fur, may be worn within the house but not in public, unless the sleeves are sewn or the cloaks are worn under an overcoat, so that the cloak cannot be seen at all. Also the coats of women which are lined with fur, must as far as possible be so made so as not to show the fur.

(Extract from Laws made by Commission held in Forli Italy, 1416)

No woman may wear on Saturdays or festive occasions more than four rings. Godmothers, midwives, those who conduct the bride under the huppah, those who conduct her to the synagogue for the morning prayers and the young bride herself on the Saturday following her marriage are allowed more than 4 rings…

All coiffures made to imitate non-Jewish fashions like godrons, en cheveux, fontages, are strictly forbidden but young girls under 12 years of age are allowed to wear en cheveux coiffures…

All ribbons of silk and taffeta of any color except black are expressly forbidden …

Brocades of all kinds and colors or silk material embroidered with flowers regardless of the shade are forbidden except for religious ceremonies. Nevertheless for corsages and sleeves these materials are allowed.

(Extracts from Sumptuary Laws of the Jewish Community of Metz, 1690)

Although the regulations set down fines as penalties for infringement, it is difficult to know to what extent they were observed. The fact that they had to be repeated so often perhaps indicates that they were hard to enforce and mainly expressed the views and values of the community leaders, while the community members were always anxious to adopt new fashions.

Female Clothing in the Work of Ita Aber

I ta Aber has spent her life as a textile artist and textile scholar. Many years ago she discovered the Greek letter “Gamma” to be a symbol of women’s clothing, and the Greek letter “Eta” of men’s clothing on textiles found in the Masada excavations, as well as on fragments from the Bar Kokhba caves. She discovered these again in the murals of the third century synagogue at Dura Europos. According to Aber, while most cultures have different types of clothing for men and women, for Jews this was especially mandated by the biblical prohibitions against “cross dressing”(discussed by Devorah Zlochower in this issue – see p.1).

Since her discovery, Aber has used these symbols on many textiles she has created. For her “feminine creations”, she has used “gammas” covered with silk as on women’s amulets. The woman’s tallit that she fashioned in 1977 uses a modified “gamma” as a primary decorative image.

With a deep knowledge of Jewish history – as well as her family background (one grandmother who came to Canada from Turkey and another who was originally German but spent some years in Poland before arriving in Canada), Aber is well aware of different Jewish customs and traditions. For example, Sephardic women’s costume is known for its elaborate jewelry, but Aber also knew that in Ashkenazi communities, for a long time, bridal dresses were decorated with pearls, (a trade which is known to have been largely in the hands of Jews in many periods), and that head coverings were frequently adorned with ribbons and glass beads and later with pearls and jewels. This has affected her choice of materials. Aber has also utilized fishscales, cut, shaped or serrated, and stitched down one against the other on velvet or other material to create an effect of branches, stems or open blooming flowers, which her research has shown was used historically for objects such as matza bags made in Jerusalem in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as for the tops of Jewish women’s slippers in Egypt and other places.

Aber’s work combines deep tradition and fascinating whimsy and originality. On a white baby girl’s naming dress, Aber embroidered colorful decorations and added the Hebrew phrase (in blue, not pink) with wishes for the baby for a life of Torah, huppah and good deeds – a phrase that has traditionally been used on wimpels, the binders painted or embroidered in many Ashkenazi communities out of the swaddling cloth used at a boy’s brit. This girl’s naming dress is now in the Ethnography Collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Bridal Attire

Jews have very much been influenced by the customs, conventions, and fashions of the societies in which they have lived. Because of this, there have always been huge variations in the way Jewish women dress, which is most noticeable in Jewish bridal attire. Since there are no halakhic requirements for the way a hatan and kallah should dress for the wedding ceremony, weddings provided the occasion to dress as beautifully as one could as well as to display the social position of the bride and her family. Jewelry was always very important for the Jewish bride. The Midrash states that God Himself prepared jewelry for Eve when he brought her to Adam.

Traditionally in Ashkenazi communities the bride wore her best dress of any color, which would then be worn on other occasions. This was also the custom of non-Jewish brides. Illustrations in books by Christians about Jewish ritual and the depictions of the bride and groom under the huppah on wimpels (the decorated swaddling cloths used to mark the birth of a baby boy in many Ashkenazi communities) show that Jewish brides historically did not wear white.

White bridal dresses, which were extremely impractical, only became widespread in non-Jewish Western circles in the early 19th century. Queen Victoria’s wedding in 1840 is often cited as a prime factor in their popularity, but the upper classes had always worn fancy ball-gown-like dresses, whereas poorer brides wore heavier “day dresses” that could be worn later for church and other occasions. The white wedding dress tradition quickly spread, and Jews readily accepted it perhaps because of the association with purity and innocence and the customs of wearing white on Yom Kippur and on the 15th of Av (Tu b’Av). In German and Dutch communities, a bride and groom would often send each other silver belts called sivlonos belts that they would wear at the huppah linked together by a third belt to symbolize the union.

In Oriental communities, Jewish brides traditionally wore very elaborate ceremonial costumes that were richly embroidered and often borrowed for the occasion. Because they were very expensive, the costumes made for weddings and festive occasions were worn for as long as possible. In many North African c o m m u n i t i e s , brides wore black and red dresses in the style of Spanish costumes, embroidered with gold and silver thread, with semi-precious stones. Gold embroidery was often a craft in which Jews specialized. Interestingly, brides traditionally did wear white in Tangier.

In Morocco the elaborate eight-piece wedding outfit was only worn for the huppah and was often passed down from mother to daughter, although by the 20th century, existing bridal dresses would be shared by brides and bridesmaids in the family or community. Today, this “Grand Costume,” the keswa el Kbira, is worn only for the henna ceremony preceding the wedding, and a white gown is usually worn for the wedding itself. The colors and the jewels of these costumes were fixed for different cities and different communities (such as green in Fez and Marrakesh, wine-red in Rabat, and purple, dark blue, and black in northwest Morocco). The bridal diadem (sfifa) in Morocco served to distinguish the Jewish bride from Muslim ones and gave her a royal look. Frequently, it was made of baroque pearls and pieces of gold jewelry with semiprecious stones on silk. Bridal earrings often had hooks at the top to attach them to the bridal diadem. In Fez, the bride would wear five gold bracelets on her right wrist and rows of gold necklaces. These would be passed from mother to daughter and lent to other brides in the family.

In Yemen, the traditional bridal costume is particularly elaborate and heavy, and generally copied Muslim bridal costumes, though there were significant differences in the details. The Jewish bride’s headgear, for example, was more symmetrical than that of the Muslim bride and consisted of different ornaments. A woman called a shareh would specially prepare the bride before her wedding; sometimes she actually owned the complete bridal outfit that she would bring. In San’a, the bride wore leggings, embroidered in an exclusively Jewish pattern; a red garment, which apparently has a symbolic meaning related to fertility; a white garment, and a gold brocade coat made of imported material from India, with many rows of heavy necklaces made by Jewish silversmiths. The necklace or labbeh was traditionally given to the Yemenite bride by her father or fiance. At the wedding it would be attached to the sides of her headgear so that it hung down framing her chin, and later she would wear it during celebrations following childbirth and other festive occasions. The bride’s high towering head-dress, the tishbuk lulu, was made of pearls and flowers. The heavy jewelry was considered a protection against possible evils. Branches of rue at the sides of the bride’s face and neck and in her hands were believed to ward off the evil eye. Elaborate bracelets were also given to the bride by her father or her future husband, and she would wear up to five on each arm. She would also wear up to ten rings on each hand in a fixed order. Israeli ethnographers have noted that Yemenite bridal costumes in Israel now revive the bridal costumes of the capital city San’a rather than those of other regions.

In Turkey, where the traditional wedding dress was an entari, there was a transitional period in the 19th century when Jewish brides would wear heavy velvet dresses called a bindalli with a scrolling or branchlike pattern of embroidery resembling a Tree of Life. This would then often be given to the synagogue to make a parokhet or a cover for the sefer Torah. By the beginning of the 20th century, under the pressures of modernization, most brides wore white, Westernstyle dresses for the actual wedding, and the more traditional costumes were likely only worn for celebrations like the henna ceremony.

In India, Cochin brides would wear white as they did on Yom Kippur and Hoshana Rabbah; the basic garment was a wrap skirt, a podava. The women of the community were often professional embroiderers, and the bridal costumes were silk with fine gold embroidery; frequently they were passed onto girls from poorer families. When the woman died, her podava would be placed on top of the coffin until burial. Among India’s B’nei Israel community, the bride would wear a white sari at the wedding as opposed to non-Jewish brides who wore a traditional red sari.

Among wealthy Bukharan families, a goldsmith would be invited into the bride’s house before the wedding to make the jewelry for the bride’s dowry and he would stay until the job was completed. The jewelry would remain the bride’s property and would be passed onto her daughters when she died. Among Cochin Jews, a Hindu goldsmith would be invited to fashion a pendant from a gold coin, and he worked under the supervision of the community’s elders. Among the B’nei Israel in India, the father would dip the necklace into a cup of wine and place it around his daughter’s neck. As among non-Jews, the wife would never take this necklace off while her husband was alive.

According to a very old custom, until the second century the bride was crowned with a “Jerusalem of Gold” bridal crown, a golden crown depicting the walls of Jerusalem. According to the Shulhan Arukh, since the destruction of the Temple a bride cannot wear a crown of silver or gold, but can wear a head-dress of other materials. This goes back to the book of Proverbs: “For they shall be as a chaplet of grace for your head” (1:9). We have evidence that bridal crowns, or myrtle, olive and flower wreathes were worn during the ceremony in talmudic times and into the Middle Ages. Often the wedding veil was a gift from the bridegroom to the bride. While many have adapted the custom of lace for the veil, Hasidic brides wear very heavy veils that completely cover the face. The Ashkenazi custom is to have a veiling ceremony (called the bedeken from the German word to cover) where the hatan covers the face of the bride and the verse of the blessing for Rebekah: “O sister, be thou the mother of tens of thousands” is said since Rebekah traditionally covered her head for the first time when she met Isaac.

Many Sephardim do not have a veiling ceremony; the brides wear a thin veil so there is no possibility of deception as in the biblical story of Jacob and Leah. A traditional custom among Turkish Jews was for the bride to wear the veil that had been used at her naming ceremony. In Afghanistan sequin embroidery was applied to the scarves that the bride wore at her betrothal ceremony. The sequins would be in the shapes of phrases like mazal tov or ben Porat Yosef – Joseph is a fruitful bough (Genesis 49.22), which was considered to be a great symbolic blessing – or in the shape of magen davids, hamsas, and Trees of Life. Sequins were also used to decorate the fans that the Afghani bride carried at the wedding ceremony, which were made of braided palm leaves, covered with silk, and then decorated.

Clothing and the Law

Do religious women suffer any discrimination today because of their clothing? It is evident that women who consider that their religion requires certain very distinctive clothing like the hijab have problems in countries with a strong focus on secularity, such as Turkey or France. Known for its laïcité or aggressive secularism, France, as well as Turkey, forbids women from wearing veils in public space like courts and universities. In 2004 a law – generally understood to target Muslim headscarves – was passed in France forbidding the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in state schools. (Part of the French defense against charges of the law being aimed at Islam was that it covered yarmulkes too!) In a country with a rapidly growing Muslim population, President Sarkozy has spoken out strongly against full or nearly full covering of women’s heads or bodies, claiming that: “The burka is not a religious sign. It is a sign of subservience, of debasement” and is not “welcome on the territory of the French Republic.”

In the United States, choices of clothing for religious reasons are viewed as acts of religious self-expression which should be protected against state interference, and, indeed, that the state should help protect within limits of issues such as public safety. The subject of clothing discrimination for religious women comes up mainly in employment situations with mandatory uniforms, such as in factory and transportation contexts, which do not significantly affect the Jewish community. After losing their jobs, women have brought discrimination lawsuits against employers who were not prepared to make accommodations in the workplace for workers who do not wear pants. In one case, a group of female Muslim employees challenged the uniform policy of an in-flight catering company in Minnesota that would have forced them to wear pants and sport shirts. Claiming that this violated Islamic standards of modesty, they achieved a revised policy that gave them the option of wearing ankle length non-flowing skirts under long-sleeved lab coats. In this case the employers were willing to accommodate as long as the women’s clothing conformed to health and safety regulations.

According to Marc Stern, Acting Co-Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress and leading expert on Church –State issues, there have been a number of American cases involving allegations by Pentecostal Christians of legal discrimination because of job requirements for women’s clothing. In one Illinois case in 2000, an armored car guard was terminated by the security firm, Brinks, because she refused to wear pants, even after stating that pants are prohibited by her religion, and after offering to make her own skirt out of the company’s pants material. She was rehired two years later after intervention by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission but then laid off again two years later, with the company claiming economic reasons. In another case, a Pentecostal Christian woman sued the New York City Transit Authority, claiming that they discriminated against her, by rejecting her request to wear a skirt in her job as a bus operator, and then terminated her when she refused to wear pants. She had complained that the standard issue uniform requiring pants, was against her religion, and brought in a letter from her pastor confirming that according to the American Pentecostals she may only wear skirts which cover her knees. In some other cases, compromises had been reached with the wearing of culottes, but this bus operator had been told by her pastor that culottes were not acceptable. She was prepared to wear either a skirt the same length as the Transit Authority culottes, or a “skort”- defined as a pair of shorts with a flap or panel across the front and sometimes the back to resemble a skirt. Neither of these, she claimed, would compromise safety regulations or liability requirements. The plaintiff defeated an attempt by the Transit Authority to dismiss her complaint and the case is still pending. An unanswered question in these cases is the extent to which customer preferences as opposed to safety considerations are legitimate factors to take into account in the formulation of dress codes. In other employment cases, they are not, but as regards “religious clothing” some, though not all, courts allow employers to do so.

In recent years as the Muslim population in America has grown, issues have arisen in different jurisdictions regarding the ability to limit the wearing of veils in schools and in court and coercion from which other distortions arise.

In fact, the Biblical imperative that serves as the source for the Jewish paradigm of tzniut speaks directly in opposition to this imbalance: hatzne’a lechet im elohekha (Micha 6:8: Walk modestly with your God). The choice of preposition here is telling and precise: not under, not behind, but with. Clearly implied here is that inherent to any true model of modesty is an equality, a “withness,” between the partners involved. And if indeed we are, as men and as women, given the condition of modesty, fit to walk with God, is it possible to conceive that we are unfit to walk modestly with each other? Men and women are here enjoined equally in the responsibility to view themselves not according to the images of each other that we have generated through generations of cagey anxiety and misguided notions, but in the far more fearless and forgiving gaze of the divine. Thus we must open ourselves to the possibility of a modesty discourse that is not solipsistic and top-down, that places limitations upon an encompassing male gaze, and takes into consideration the implication of a female gaze that does more than simply respond to male needs. Instead of blithely accepting that women and men are from two different planets—and then suiting them up as babies in their little pink and blue space suits, assuming that this is simply the natural course—we must examine the ways in which we are responsible for what has happened. We have been outfitting our sons and daughters for different journeys to different atmospheres—some of which make it very hard for them to breathe (See Bordo, S. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private, 1999). We must consider how, in our well-intentioned attempt to equip them for survival, we often unintentionally send them throttling off into dizzying orbits that serve neither their own deepest spiritual needs, nor the personally meaningful, practically expansive, and communally redemptive imperatives of tzniut. In short, we must create another cosmology, wherein men and women inhabit the earth together—our synagogues together—not as two different species, but as one holy community, together embodying the directive of walking with God.

It’s A Wedding: Why Black?

In certain periods, external authorities prohibited Jews from wearing particular colors. Often, in Islamic countries, only Muslims were allowed to wear green. But Jews also had regulations and conventions about colors, and these continue. Many Haredi, and particularly Hasidic communities, ban women from wearing red, seen by some historical sources as associated with idolatry, loose behavior and immodesty. Today, in many Orthodox communities, both Haredi and modern Orthodox, there is a proliferation of black in women’s clothing. Whereas previously one specifically did not wear black at a wedding, now the mothers of the hatan and kallah and even very young bridesmaids are often dressed in black. Is this just a fashion trend—black is chic—or does it reflect something deeper? Some say the choice is based on economic reasons—black being something that can be worn repeatedly and go anywhere. But could reasons of modesty or self-effacement be propelling this convention, or perhaps a desire to dress in the color that men dress in, without transgressing prohibitions of cross dressing?