When is comes to color, like with other cultures and religions, different colors take on different meanings, but black isn't the only color worn by Hasidic women.
But not red -- never red! As this color is not seen as modest. In Hasidic communities women will tend to wear navy, bottle green, browns and gray. The idea is to look smart, but not to draw too much attention to yourself," she explained. Orthodox women choose to buy clothing from a variety of different places -- from Jewish-owned clothing stores within their community to other non-Jewish shops or shopping centers. For Fulton, there are several go-to stores that often sell pieces that work for her.
She also noted that many high fashion designers have been producing collections that offer options for women who choose to dress modestly. I'm a big fan of the whole s revival, too, with Laura Ashley-inspired designs and brands such as The Vampire's Wife. Another brand that has become popular with both observant and secular women alike is Batsheva. Established by native New Yorker Batsheva Hay, the foundations of her namesake label are centered around her own personal history and culture.
Her husband, photographer Alexei Hay, began following Orthodox practices just before they started dating. At their wedding, Batsheva -- who grew up in a secular Jewish family and who is not ultra-observant of Jewish dress codes -- said men and women were separated, which is traditional, and Hay wore her mother's wedding dress, made from Mexican lace and suitable for tznius. Alexei and Batsheva Hay on their wedding day.
In the deeply pious Hassidic communities that emerged in Eastern Europe during the 18th century, it was even common for women to cut off all their hair after their wedding and wear a headscarf, called the tichel. Nonetheless, the different strains of orthodoxy gradually varied their interpretation of the custom, from covering the hair entirely after the wedding to only covering some.
Today orthodox women cover their hair with a sheitel, scarf, bonnet or beret, or a hairnet. Regardless of which variant a married woman decides on, she can choose from among many styles. An introduction to binding attractive tichels as well as appealing ways to wear a sheitel can be found on the internet. These days many women refuse altogether, for the sake of propriety to cover their hair completely. Photo by Joan Roth with permission of Yeshivat Maharat.
Married Orthodox women across the world cover their hair. How do they feel about it? As we have gleaned from many of the comments on the article as well as on social media and beyond, women who cover their hair embrace the custom.
They typically do not feel oppressed by men who are those men anyway? Many women find meaning in this custom, as the women in the video suggested, whether or not this meaning was intended by the Talmudic or later rabbis. A fairly common practice among Israeli women is to cover their hair with scarves and hats, but not wigs, to satisfy this Halacha.
Others make a decision not to adhere to this custom for religious or personal reasons. Shimon Steinmetz is a historian and researcher who lives in Brooklyn. Frimet Goldberger is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to the Forward. Home The Complete History of the Sheitel.
Home Share 24 Search. Email Facebook Twitter. Give Podcast Subscribe. Author Frimet Goldberger and Shimon Steinmetz. J Goldberg. Gestetner knew the shop because her two sisters, who run the popular modest fashion brand The Frock , also get their wigs there. Volkov crafts styles that range from multicolored mermaid waves to trendy tousled brunette lobs , which Volkov says are the best-selling units at the moment.
Zelda Hair's popularity among young Orthodox Jewish women, who fly across the country and sometimes even the world to shop there, makes it the center of a conversation currently being had in Orthodox Judaism: To wig or not to wig? While it was once seen as more of a rule or a community standard than a choice, these young women are exploring their options when it comes to covering their hair, effectively creating their own unique relationships with these wigs and how they decide to wear them.
As with many aspects of Judaism, there is debate over what a sheitel really represents — and who it is really for. Indeed, in the Jewish religious law text the Talmud, it is declared that "hair on a woman is ervah, " or essentially, "nakedness and impropriety" that should be covered once a woman is married.
The tradition of married Orthodox Jewish women covering their hair has been around for thousands of years, with women first using a cloth or a veil. It wasn't until the 16th century that Jewish women in Italy popularized the idea of wearing a wig as a covering, which actually ended up causing a huge debate among rabbis, who both condemned and condoned the practice of wearing them on modesty grounds.
But today, even as the debate over wigs remains unsettled across Orthodox communities the fastest-growing denomination within Judaism , sheitels are reportedly more popular than ever. Rabba Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez, an Orthodox rabbi who teaches in Atlanta and always covers her hair with a hat or wig, says many communities are looking to modernize.
But there's another reason why some Jewish women are looking to wigs rather than caps and scarfs. While every Orthodox community's expectations around sheitels are different— as is every woman's relationship to these wigs — there remains a prevailing question: Can you believe in your own agency as a woman, consider yourself a feminist, and cover your hair? Today, some women argue that yes, you absolutely can.
For them, it is a choice that they make for themselves and their faith, rather than something that feels like an order. It can also have little to do with their husbands at all.
Cover Story. Zelda Hair was actually born out of Volkov's uneasy feelings about having to wear a wig in the first place. I went from looking 15 to 45 overnight.
For the first three years of her marriage, Volkov looked at that wig as a burden, and finally took it upon herself at 22 to start crafting wigs of her own that more closely resembled her own long, wavy, blonde hair. In , she opened Zelda Hair as an alternative to the stereotypically dark and outdated wig shops in her neighborhood, where there is a lively Orthodox Jewish community.
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