Women Without Hats: A Response

In "Women Without Hats", Miriam Mandel Levi shares her head-covering journey, which takes her from feminist opposition to head-covering to troubled acceptance to decision not to think too hard to rejection- albeit, rejection that maintains a consistent covering practice...

The piece read as a story of one person's struggle with Torah and with observance, using the question of head and/or hair covering as a lens into the struggle.  The controversial kuntz was that, after 25 years of head-covering (with hats), she changed her practice to a much more liberal version- small scarves, rather than hats that covered most of her hair.  But really, it's the story of a life of religious faith in the modern world- the struggle to combine and coordinate between faith, feminism, family, friends...

To be frank, I think that the author could probably re-view her practice in different lights, and find more peace with either her old practice or her new one, and in the end find more comfort in her practice, and in its feminist acceptability, than she currently seems to.  But I'm not actually sure that that's what she wants.  She writes that she encountered a text that talks about devotional head-covering: "I had a short reprieve when I came across a quotation in the Talmud by Rabbi Huna Ben Joshua, a third-century sage, who said that he never walked four cubits with his head uncovered, “because the Presence is always over my head.” His proclamation is one of the sources for the custom of men wearing kippot. Rabbi Huna’s words resonated with me. Perhaps if I thought of my hats as a reminder of this divine presence, I would better tolerate, even appreciate them. Hair covering would have a meaning and purpose I could embrace wholeheartedly.  Unfortunately, Rabbi Huna’s inspiration was short-lived. Within a matter of weeks, my hats did not remind me of the Presence any more than my socks did."

Somehow, the fact that this inspiration didn't last, as most inspirations of this sort don't, was enough to put her off...  But I doub that anyone who wears kippah regularly is thinking about it inspirationally on a regular basis either, after a while.  It certainly wore off, except for random moments, for me.  But when you're struggling, a normal state of affairs isn't always enough.

Nevertheless, there's something that feels a little bit "white" about the feminism that the author is influenced by, although I don't seem to be able to flesh out why, yet.  Something about the long Jewish history of head-covering, and that simplifying it into a modesty thing feels reductionist to me.  But maybe that's just because I like the practice, and it feels no less feminist than a wedding ring, to me.

It sounds rather more controversial than it probably is, given the wide variety of ways that this mitzvah is practiced, to be honest.  A practice that she describes as "I know the scarves don’t adhere to even the most minimal legal standard of hair covering. They aren’t particularly modest and don’t necessarily identify me as married or religious. "  is in fact the marital head-covering practice of several women I know- although it is also the devotional head-covering practice of some women I know also...  

Yes, it doesn't mark the community that she spends her life in, quite- but it's still likely that an informed viewer will see it and know that that scarf, small as it is in relation to the hats she's used to, is still likely sending signals of "observant" and "married", if in a somewhat different mode of "observant" than she's used to.  I offer, in support, the fact that when I was single and covered in that style, I definitely got some comments of "how is anyone going to know that you're single if you wear that".

Reaction to a Reflection on Head Covering

A charming and thoughtful personal account of one woman's journey with head covering of various sorts.

A couple of highlights, for me:

I was the little girl in the large, floppy hat.

It was called my “davening hat,” and I wore it dutifully every morning during prayer services as a child. Even though I was raised in an Orthodox home, my parents sent me to a Conservative day school starting in kindergarten, and I did quite a few things differently at school than I did at home.

All students, girls included, were required to wear kippotduring our school prayer services. This upset me on several levels. First, I did not want to wear what I recognized so distinctively to be boys’ clothing; gender difference was a particularly sensitive issue when I was at an age when cooties were still relevant. But more than that, I did not like the idea of some obscure (and apparently fickle) religious authority instructing me what I should or should not wear on my head. A healthy spirit of defiance beginning to stir, I went to see the principal, my 5-year-old self sitting across from him at his handsome oak desk, my feet not nearly touching the floor.

Together we came up with an ingenious solution: I could wear a hat instead. But even though we had shaken hands on the idea, my small palm getting lost somewhere in the conciliatory gesture, my flower-emblazoned pink sun hat made me feel silly in the reverent pews of the school sanctuary. The deceptively cheery flower perched front and center did not match the gloomy pout persevering underneath. I felt uncomfortable. The hat made me look different and strange—a blaring sign that a disgruntled kindergartener was flouting communal norms.

This is both a familiar experience for me (without it even involving a separate piece of clothing) and something I both fear and expect for my daughter.  How do I bridge the gap between our family's practice and a world that has smaller and more separate "boxes"?  I grew up often feeling different, and it was hard- but it also made me who I am, in ways that I now think were worth it.  It's an on-going question.  But I appreciated this story.

Ans skipping to the author's adulthood, newly married:

But when I one day chose to wrap a colorful Israeli scarf around my head, similar to the ones my mother always wore, my head covering signaled to the world that I was different. While my teenage-self had blanched at the idea, my adult self wore the look proudly. My scarf was an external sign of oneness with my community.

No head covering is arbitrary—every detail, to the carefully trained eye, is significant.

For me, however, covering my head has evolved from an attempt to appease my community into an effort to belong to my community.

 In other words, a head covering is a symbol of identity- and only feels right if it aligns you, in your own vision, with your perceptions of yourself and who you see as your community.

 

 

Historical Head-Coverings: The Sarma, Algerian Jewish Women's Head-Covering

The Sarma was made of a metal piece with a tall front that could project up to a meter tall, with pieces that fit the sides and the top of head.  Accounts of it date back to 1730.  It was made out of metal lace, which I read was made by cutting away pieces of metal, which made it somewhat cooler and lighter-weight than solid metal pieces would be.  Other images certainly seem to suggest that the metal was shaped into lacework, rather than being made of cut-outs.

It was fastened to head with scarves and strips of fabric.  A woman would place the first one over her forehead and she would tie it at the back of her head.  The second would be placed under the chin, and the ends would be brought up and tied over her head.  A third scarf,  long and narrow, would wing around the base before hanging in two ribbons down the back.  These tails or ribbons would hang all the way to the feet.

At home it was worn uncovered (as much as having three scarves wrapped around your head in various directions qualifies as uncovered), but women would put another shawl over all of this for outdoors.  The illustrations that I've seen show that shawl as a thin, even translucent piece of fabric with what looks like embroidery on it.  It looks gorgeous.  Some women, believe it or not, even slept in their sarma.  It doesn't sound comfortable to me.

Some accounts say that at least in the early 20^th century,- unmarried girls, once mature, would also wear the sarma, only with some sort of flower-shaped "tremblers" added to indicate their available status.  I haven't found any pictures of those yet.

I'd love to know how this style developed, but again, no information there yet.  One of the odd things about this research is that there is very little that I can find available online, as of yet.  As usual, as I find more information, I'll definitely be sharing it here.

Information in this post comes primarily from The Jewish Wardrobe: From the Collection of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, ed. Esther Juhasz and A History of Jewish Costume, by Alfred Rubens.  

Historical Head Covering: Mehdor

Since some of us have a little more time this week- I seem to be upping the blogging schedule.  Here's some pretty interesting information about the Mehdor, a Jewish women's head covering from Morocco.

The Mehdor was made out of silver wire and horsehair or cattlehair.  It was basically a combination of a wig and an ornament/hat combination.  The mehdor was the most elaborate of Moroccan women’s headdresses, but it was worn daily in one region of the country.  It would cover a woman's head from ear-to-ear in front, with two forelocks of "woven hair" visible.  Basically, it came with it's own bit of "wig" in the front.  These bands would then be gathered into braids (after/behind the visible part) which tied the mehdor onto the woman's head.

(In this image, you can see that the "hair" in front is part of the mehdor.)

On festive occasions, women would add a red silk scarf- called a feshtul- trailing down the back behind the mehdor.  Affluent women would then add pearl tiara- called a tasfift- over it.  (This tasfift is related to styles worn by Spanish Jews, and shows a connection and impact between the two Jewish cultures.)  Over it all a they might add another scarf, called a sebniyya- which would fully conceal the mehdor itself.

(This is an image of a woman wearing a tasfift.)

Creating a mehdor was a collaborative process.  First, a silversmith would arrange cattle-tail hair lengthwise, and bind bundles of it with silver wire.  He would then attach vertical silver tubular half-cylinders to this base, which were also decorated with enamel cloisonné and inlaid with colorful beads.  After that, seamstresses added a padded, layered cotton lining with a cylindrical thickened edge at top.  (This gave it shaping.)

Like a number of other historical head coverings (like the Shterntikhl in Eastern Europe, for example) it was used to display family’s wealth.

A Comment Worth The Sharing: On Passing And Jewish Identity

Liz Shayne offered these thoughts as a comment on a previous post.  I found them really interesting, and from a perspective that was new to me, maybe since I'm living in New York City, where Jews are plentiful and pretty identifiable.  I thought it was really interesting and worth getting more attention.  I invite you to read on, and share your own thoughts and reactions in the comments section.  

"Visibility is...an interesting problem because I've found there's a difference between looking different and being visible as a member of a group. There's a strange space between passing and proclaiming identity where I look different from everyone else, but my surrounding culture lacks the necessary cues to identify me.

This is another sticky place between privilege and presence, because I look "stylish" when I cover my hair with a hat, especially when I'm wearing a beret/wool cloche during the winter. And even my headscarves pass for intriguingly retro or offbeat on the street. There are days when I want a large sign taped to the back of my head saying "This covering has religious significance for me!" and then there are days when I very much don't.

When I first started teaching, I only wore hats because hats, as Rachel says, help one pass. By the end of my first year, I was more comfortable wearing scarves to teach (and I was running an 8am section and taking my orals at that point so the fact that I got to the classroom with a lesson plan and my shirt the right way round was an achievement) and, over the summer, I deliberately wore a large, rectangular scarf on my second day as an odd kind of "this is who I am" statement.

But I never know if the statement I'm making is the same one other people are hearing (this has often been my experience with teaching, especially in the beginning).

So I value being able to pass because I am uncomfortable standing out without standing up. And yet there seems to be a lack of cultural awareness of Jewish hair covering as a recognizable form. This, I imagine, is because the how of covering has always been culturally determined and so Judaism, as such, does not have a distinctive style. We adopt the style of the culture around us and cover accordingly. And the current Western style of public hair covering is to not, which complicates matters and means that the current generation of Ashkenazi women (for the purposes of this conversation and making sweeping claims, lets say women under 40) find themselves in search of a tradition/stye of hair covering they can turn to and (assuming they have a job that does not mind scarf-like coverings) they, somewhat naturally, turn to the Israeli styles and modify them for the kinds of scarves and styles suited to the West…and attempt to avoid cultural appropriation in the process.

Do we fail to stand out because we pass or because we aren’t identifiable in the first place?" 

A New Hat (Made By Me)

I've had a burst of crochet energy for things made of yarn and not just kippot (I should start showing some of the kippot I've made though- I think I was planning to, at one point).  So I just finished a new winter beret for myself.  My old one is stretched out a bit (from getting it on over my frequently bulky scarf arrangements, also from being 5ish years old and made when I had less crochet experience), and while I hope to give it some new life by adding some elastic at some point, in the meantime, it was a good excuse to make myself something new and different.  So without further ado, here it is.

It's made with two strands of yarn- one wool, the other this novelty stuff that I bought years ago, realized I had no idea what to do with it, and have been eyeing with desire and mystification ever since.  It's perhaps slightly larger than necessary, but it's really pleasant to wear, so far.  This is it with a bulkier scarf underneath.

The "pattern" as such is very easy.  You start by crocheting a kippah/pancake of massive proportions.  It should be just a little larger than you want the widest part of the hat to be.

Do one row without increases, then start decreasing (pull up a loop in your next stitch. then don't finish that stitch- pull up a loop through the next stitch, and finish the single crochet pulling through all the loops) with about the same frequency as you were adding before- maybe a little more frequently.  Continue decreasing along your spiral until the opening is about the size of your head (I try it on every once in a while as it gets close).

Once it has, do several more rows at just that width.  I did two rows with a nice alternation of front and back post half-double crochet around the bottom, so it feels snug and a little stretchy around my face.

And for kicks- here's how I used to wear berets.  I still like it, it just doesn't work so well for me right now.  But the hat is large enough to do this even with my hair underneath, which most berets can't manage...

I know it's a bit odd, wearing a hat over a scarf.  Some folks seem to find the scarf enough, even in winter.  I don't, especially since my scarves don't usually cover my ears.  What do you do to keep your head warm in winter, without being too hat indoors?

Our First Tefillin and Head-Covering Interview

I'm delighted to introduce to you this blog's first interviewee, who is also a friend who was something of a mentor to me in my religious practice in college.  

Who are you?  What do you do with your days?   

I'm Tovah.  I'm a wife, a mother, and a student.  I have been married for 5 and a half years.  My baby is almost 8 months old.  I am working towards my doctorate in biology, and have been doing that longer than I've been a wife and mother combined.

What brought you to start covering your head?

I have been covering my hair since I got married and covering my head in some way since my Bat Mitzvah.  At first, I wore a kippah when I wore my tallit and/or tefillin.  In college, I began wearing the kippah any time I was praying and later when I was eating, as well.  After college, I went to Israel for the year to study in Yeshivah.  I began to feel uncomfortable taking the kippah off at the end of the day, since Judaism did not stop when I stepped out the door, so I decided to start covering my head all the time.

How do you cover your head, and for what reason or reasons? 

When I first started covering my head, I wore a kippah, but I got negative attention when I was out and about in Jerusalem, so I decided to wear something less conspicuous.  I began wearing hats and scarves, but did so mostly with my hair loose, which was not how I was going to cover when married.  When I learned about the origins of hair covering for married women, it seemed to me that loose hair was the real issue, so when I got married, I kept my hair braided or in a bun if it was showing.  Since cutting my hair, I leave it loose, but am more strict about keeping it covered.  When it was long, I would occasionally take off my hat/scarf briefly to adjust it or if I was hot, so long as my hair was still "bound."  With my hair short, my hat/scarf stays on in public, and if I need to adjust, I find some privacy.

I cover my head to remind myself that Hashem is "above" me - similar to the reason for men to wear kippah.  I cover my hair because it is clear to me that the Torah expects a married woman to have some sort of covering or binding of her hair.  To me it symbolizes the extra modesty required of a married woman and is an indicator of status, much like a wedding ring in American society.

Do you think that covering is required?  If so, how much? 

I think covering is required, but I think how and how much are subject to much interpretation.

When did you start putting on tefillin?   What brought you to do so?

I have been putting on tefillin since my bat mitzvah.  I grew up in an egalitarian Conservative shul where many women wore tallit and a few put on tefillin.  I was given the choice, and chose to do so because it seemed to me to be better to do more mitzvot.  At that time, I went to shul only a few times a week and only put on tefillin when I went to shul.  I did not start putting on tefillin every day until the year I spent in Israel.

How do you find the combination of head covering and tefillin?  Do they feel complimentary, for you?  Oppositional?  Unrelated?   

When my hair was long and my main way to "cover" it was to keep it braided or in a bun, putting on tefillin was easy.  My hair would be up and I wore a kippah.  Once I cut my hair and decided that a kippah was not enough covering by itself in public, tefillin in shul got a little more complicated.  Now I wear a kippah under a loose-fitting hat.  I lift the hat up quickly to put the tefillin under it, keeping it over my hair the whole time.  Doing it this way feels a little uncomplimentary, but I'm usually more concerned about my hair being in my eyes or the straps of the tefillin shel rosh getting twisted.  At home, I still just wear a kippah with my tefillin since hair covering is a public issue while head covering is for all the time.

How did you come to your current combination?  Do any moments stand out that you’d share with us? 

When I first cut my hair, I tried wearing tefillin with a scarf draped over my head, but it was hard to keep that on.  I also experimented with threading the straps under a headband, but that didn't work at all.

I have had some difficult moments when away from home that I've forgotten to bring an appropriate hat to wear with the tefillin.  I had to cover with whatever I had in ways that weren't completely comfortable.

Do you have any tips or tricks to make the combination easier that you could share with us?

If you're going to go with a hat, try a bunch in private to find one that is comfortable over the tefillin.

A Hat Link

Here's a list of hints for wearing hats confidently, ranging from what hats tend to suit what face shapes to where to find hats, and how to combine hats with appropriate hat styles.  I like the attitude the author has in her writing, and the ideas are helpful too.

Let me know what you think of it.

A Hat Link

I have played with scarves quite a bit- but hats are still pretty uncertain territory for me.  So I just loved this post, which both explores how hats interact with individual faces (artistically), and gives a few tips for checking out hat-wearing for yourself.

Jews and Hats, In the News

For once, something about Jewish men and their hats.  In this case, mostly Satmar men, and their hats- made in Spain.
Worth a read

Tichels and Tefillin

One of the more practically complex aspects to being both egalitarian and invested in head-covering is combining covering my head and putting on tefillin in a halakhically valid manner.  If you're not willing to show some amount of hair, this just can't happen in public, because the head tefillin -both the bayit and the strap- need to rest on your head, not on another object (a mistake I see on Purim just about every year, from people with wigs/hats as parts of their costume, who just aren't thinking about it.)

I manage it by pushing my scarf back just a little bit, so that the tefillin rest in the appropriate place, with the bottom edge just at my hairline.  Then I run my fingers around my scarf, pushing it back just enough so that the retzuah- the strap of the tefillin- is on my hair and not on my scarf.  Since I use kippah clips to keep my scarves on, I lift them enough to let the retzuah slide underneath them.  The whole thing adds about 5-10 seconds to how long it takes to put on tefillin, and doesn't muss most scarf arrangements too badly.

Some styles are better for davening in the morning than others- things like a bun style, braid, or pretty much anything that doesn't have much bulk on top will work with tefillin.  When I want to do my tichel in a crown or other top-heavy fashion, I often just either wear a large, crocheted cap/kippah (if I'm davening at home, which has been my default this year- hopefully I'll make improvements to my minyan attendance soon), or tie my tichel just at the basic level for coverage and leave the tails hanging until after I finish davening.

On the other hand, I don't know how to work this sort of thing with a hat with any sort of brim, unless you can take it off to put the tefillin on and put it back on over them.  So berets are doable with this system, but anything else gets tricky, unless you don't mind people getting a view of your hair, if you're in public.

Recap in step form:
1. Put on headcovering.  Expect anything with a lot of bulk around your head to get jostled off or get in the way.
2. Put on tefillin in the appropriate fashion.  When you get to the head, start putting it on, and say the bracha. Then:
3. adjust scarf out of the way of the tefillin in front.
4.  Run your fingers around the strap, adjusting scarf out of the way.  Settle everything in place.
5. Go on with putting your tefillin on, daven, etc.

After Davening:
1. When you come to remove your tefillah shel rosh (head tefillin), do so carefully, taking the strap out from under any clips or other obstructions first, for minimum frustration.
2. Touch up your tichel in any way you feel needed. For example: tug the front forward a little if you want, re-clip to tighten if needed, or put up the ends of your scarf, or additional scarves, to give yourself some height.

Maya and Hats

I'm much more comfortable with scarves than with hats.  Hats tend to fall across my forehead and give me a headache, for one.  For another thing, finding a hat that can accommodate my hair in a functional way is not so easy to do.  I can wear a braid with some of them, but it isn't always the way they're designed to be worn, and therefore some of them look pretty silly.  Others just don't provide enough head coverage.  So I have a handful of hats, but I don't wear them so very often.  It sometimes feels like a fashion failure- such pretty things, and I don't know what to do with them.

Recently, I found a nice solution that makes at least some of my hats a bit more wearable.  I remembered that my sister-in-law often wears a light-weight tichel under her hat, when she wears one (mostly to weddings and the like).  I've done that in the past, so that I could take the hat off when I wanted to- often a big success.

But in this case, I wanted to wear my sunhat, which is just  a little big on me- so there was room to wear a scarf wrapped with both ends up around the top of my head, one over the other, underneath it.

This let me wear my hat with the bottom of the brim propped up to my hairline, rather than cutting across my forehead, irritating it and cutting off my range of vision.  It also meant that I had a nice-looking tichel wrapped, if I wanted to take the hat off.  All together, it was a very nice combination.

It isn't a real solution to "how to make hats convenient for me", but it's a good step in the right direction- and very good for my skin, in this heat and sun.