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Israel: Sally Berkovic has written an interesting article about the fuss over the hair used for wigs by Orthodox Jewish women, touching on the rules, the role of rabbis, and the status of women.
Interestingly, this current scandal broke in the same week as It's Your Turn, an hour-long video endorsing the importance of modesty for women, was shown simultaneously in Orthodox communities around the globe. This international campaign championing modesty is promoted by Bnos Melochim (Daughters of Royalty), an organization that has produced a year-long diary with a daily law of modesty for women to study.
Of course, there are many positive aspects of the Orthodox approach to modesty in a world where the prevailing attitude to women's (and men's) bodies is derogatory. But if the rabbis are the captains of the modesty movement, it is the cadre of women lieutenants that leads the battalion of foot soldiers on the way to higher necklines, more severe head coverings, and ankle-length hems.
As well as the coincidental timing (the issue was first raised nearly 15 years ago, and had been conveniently forgotten), Berkovic wonders why the fuss, when there are many more important issues right now:
While terror haunts Israel every day, while anti-Semitism increases around the world, and while thousands of Jews remain woefully ignorant about the basics of their own religion, you have to wonder. How can it be that the great sages of our generation are concerned once again about women's bodies, women's hair, and women's desires?
Is this really about modesty... - Jerusalem Post [BugMeNot], 19th May 2004; see also Rebuilding the Berlin Wall around the Torah - Pagan Prattle , 14th May 2004.
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at 14:14. Last modified on September 28 2006 at 23:42.
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Comments
1: Posted by: pericat | May 24, 2004 1:31 AM
I am concerned every single day with women's bodies, women's hair and women's desires, but p'raps that's just me.
2: Posted by: Feòrag | May 24, 2004 1:46 PM
Yes dear, but you like women's bodies, rather than being scared of them and wanting them, and the people who have them, to go away.
3: Posted by: Joseph | June 1, 2004 10:33 PM
"Berkovic wonders why the fuss, when there are many more important issues right now."
This is a specious argument. Should we stop prosecuting identify theft simply because we're hunting terrorists. For the religious, issues like these are worthy of thought and action irrespective of other issues. And idol worship is a *major* issue in Judaism.
4: Posted by: Feòrag | June 2, 2004 12:09 AM
Naw, following the rules is important in Judaism. Other stuff, like believing in God, isn't even necessary to being a good (religious) Jew.
5: Posted by: Feòrag | June 2, 2004 9:58 AM
I should be a little less blunt. The point, as Berkovic mentioned, is that the 'problem' has been known about for about fifteen years, and there has been little bother about it. She's arguing that bringing it up right now is a sideshow, to distract from the infinitely more important problems going on right now -- if it really was such a major concern of the ultra-orthodox rabbis, they'd have been moaning about throughout the intervening years.
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