Customer Reviews

Hide and Seek: Jewish Women and Hair Covering

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In this collection, Schreiber gently re-introduces the issue of religious hair covering, which for most Jewish women is simply Not Discussed. Either they do it or they don't...and most would never consider doing otherwise.

This book opens the door to dialogue on a subject that's usually hushed up; dialogue not just between women, but between husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, religious and non-religious -- if those distinctions even make any sense, given the free flow and open intellectual exchange surging among all the essays gathered here.

Schreiber has collected writings from women who have always covered their hair, with sheitels (wigs), tichels (scarves) and everything in between, some hating it and others cherishing the opportunity, women who used to cover their hair and stopped, women who never covered their hair and started doing it.

Women's voices come through loud and clear in this unique collection: one started in her 60's following chemotherapy; another wrestled with the issue for years, insisting on covering her hair even as she went around in jeans. A chassidic woman writes of her joy as her mother-in-law arrived to shave her hair off the morning after her wedding... while another says she's still struggling with concealing her proud mane, even years into her marriage.

This mitzvah -- or custom, depending on who you ask (and all opinions are represented here, proving the issue isn't entirely black-and-white) -- isn't the no-questions-asked litmus test of frumkeit (religiousness) that I once thought.

There are important questions here that we all need to answer for ourselves... questions which have been silenced for a very long time. Break the silence by sharing this book with other women around you.

Of the 27 essays collected in this book, the great majority are personal accounts by women of how they came to cover their hair after marriage and how they feel about it. One essay is by a woman who stopped covering her hair after 7 years of marriage. There are also some well researched articles about the origins of the Jewish practice for married women to cover their hair. Rabbinic opinions (including Rav Yosef Mashash) allowing married women to go without hair coverings are mentioned and quoted - but this is clearly not the essence of the book.
Some of the essays are moving, others are quite funny - One of them, by the author herself, is unintentionally amusing when she describes how she has come to terms with covering her hair, but before doing so, spends over a page and a half describing her hair in great detail! Another sort of sick but funny one is about the convert who feels that shaving her hair (She married a Hassid) is a penance for past misdeeds... There is a fascinating article about a wig-maker, another by a husband of a 'liberal' hat wearer, a sprinkling of articles by divorcees and widows and one about the Lubavitcher Rebbe's endorsement of the wig as hair cover.
This book is an interesting read and can serve also as a springboard for further investigation of the subject.

Lynne Schreiber has compiled a fascinating set of essays, mostly by women, on covering one's hair with wig (sheitel), scarf (tichel), snood, or hat. Some essays explore the historical and legal (halachic) background for doing so. Some essays discuss current customs and their nuances. For example, one woman writes of being proud to be seen wearing a hat in synagogue because everyone would know she was married. A Hasidic woman in Jerusalem writes about young girls growing up with the happy expectation of shaving their heads when they marry. And the Lubavitch Rebbe wrote that wigs are better than hats because the woman is less likely to remove it in public. A worthwhile read for anyone interested in why Orhtodox women cover their hair, and for anyone considering doing so.

"Upon arriving in Israel, I realized that here in the holy land, most married, Jewish women actually do cover their hair. I was thrilled! For almost as long as I had fussed about my hair, I had also wanted to marry. Now I had another good reason to do so - marriage would provide an answer for the endless question, what do I do with my hair?" ~Devorah Israeli

Traditional Judaism expects married women to cover their hair, except in front of their husbands and other women. In modern society this custom and religious observance has been widely challenged. This book explores the customs and history of this practice and gives voice to people around the world who have varied feelings on hair covering. Some women shave their heads, wear wigs and others wear various head coverings for different situations. The glossary of terms also helps to understand the various head coverings.

"It makes me feel honored, responsible, respected.
Though it was at first glance an idea I rejected."
~Julie Hauser

Whether you cover your hair for religious reasons or have always been curious about this topic, this book has many answers for the observant and the observer. Lynne Schrieber has collected a variety of essays from various contributors, making this one of the most interesting, spiritually emotive and unique books I've read lately.

Hide and Seek takes a topic one might assume to be oppressive and makes it feel very freeing in the way you would feel free by loving God and keeping his commandments. Lynne Schrieber effectively unveils this topic in a serious of beautiful essays.

~The Rebecca Review

The practice of three generations ago of women covering their hair by a host of different ways has resurged in modern times. Lynne Schreiber, a journalist, collected the views of two dozen women and one man on whether they feel that hair covering is important.

The women give different, usually enthusiastic, sometimes humorous, but always interesting reasons why they do so. However, there is also one article by an Israeli woman who stopped covering her hair because she didn't want to identify with the negative attitude of many women who cover their hair about the State of Israel. There is also an article by a woman who hid her hair who is offended by the thought that she must cover up to stop males from getting sexually excited.

There is no evidence as to when this behavior began. It may have started sometime in the beginning of medieval times. It is not Jewish in origin; people can see pictures showing that Christian and Muslim wives also covered and continue to cover their heads, Muslims much more ubiquitously and Christians sometimes only in church.

There is no biblical command for head or hair wrappings, but those who seek a scriptural suggestion of it, refer to Numbers 5:18, which describes how a suspected adulterous wife is degraded. The verse states that the priest "must fara the head of the woman." The meaning of fara is uncertain. It could mean "uncover," "grow long" or "unbraid." Those who seek scriptural support say that fara means "uncover," and argue that since the priest degrades her by showing her hair, it is clear that a pious proper wife would have her hair covered.

The codes of law, including Maimonides' Mishneh Torah and the Shulchan Arukh, state that wives must keep their heads covered, although Maimonides does not consider it a biblical command. Many if not most Orthodox women, including the late wife of the late famed Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, do not cover their hair.

Some of the women in this volume say that they observe the practice because they feel that it is a law, others recognize that it is a custom and give other reasons. Some women do so because their rabbi or their rabbi's wife said that they should do so. Some said that obeying this law stops them from disobeying other laws; for, they said, it is difficult, for example, to see a woman with covered hair eating non-kosher food. Others behave this way because this is how they were brought up, their friends do so, their husbands want it, or it links them to generations of past pious women. Still others prefer to conceal their hair because they do not like the looks or feel of their unruly mop, or fear the words of the mystical book Zohar that threatens women with harm to herself, husband and children if even a strand of hair is visible. One woman wrote that she feels that women are generally excluded from Jewish activities; now she has a unique practice that only women can perform. Others felt that hair covering cleanses them from sins or it is part of a pact that they make with God; I'll cover my hair and You, God, take care of me.

Some women hide their entire head and show no hair; others conceal just parts of their hair leaving bangs or a pony tail. Some insist on wearing wigs, called shaitels, that look as nice as, if not nicer, than their own hair. Some women feel that even if they wear a wig, they must overlay the wig with a hat. Others wear on a hat, don scarves, called tichels, or a snood.

A snood is a kind of net or bag placed over the hair. Interestingly, as with yarmulkes worn by men, there are many kinds of snoods and a person in the know could discern whether the snood wearer is ultra orthodox or just plain orthodox depending on how the snood is designed.

The practices differ in different communities and Ashkenazic and Sephardic and Chassidic wives behave differently, and there are also deviations within these groups.

The articles also discuss difficulties, such as the frequent, usually once monthly maintenance to have wigs reshaped, headaches and itching suffered by some wives wearing wigs, women who want to cover their hair and wear pants rather than dresses, and widows who covered their hair after their husbands' death and are unable to find a new husband because the men see the hair covering and think they are married.

I bought this book because I'm living in Russia where Chabbad is the entire community and I've been covering my hair largely out of respect. I know that in America modern Orthodox women often don't, and I began to try to figure out whether or not it's actually something I need to take on for myself even when I'm not in Russia. I thought this book (the only one I could find on the subject) would give me enough information to make my decision. It didn't, but thanks to a lot of solid scholarship and many stories of others thinking and experiences, I have so much more to go on. I think they should reprint this book. I also think that we, as Jewish women need to embrace the discussion on this issue and not let others sidetrack us into thinking it's about oppression and ancient, irrelevant customs.

This is a well-edited anthology of essays by a wide variety of Jewish women who for one reason or other chose to cover her hair, according to traditional Jewish practice. (This applies to married women only.) For many, it was a difficult decision; one contributor took on wigs while undergoing cancer treatment, but chose to keep up the practice even after she recovered from her illness. The stories are surprisingly compelling, much more than philosophical musings, and even include one essay by a woman who covered her hair for years but then stopped. As one contributor wrote, "Covering my hair helps me remember that I am not only about what everyone else can see." -- Judy Gruen, www.judygruen.com

This book, on such an underrepresented subject, is long overdue. With all of the books in recent years on women in Orthodox Judaism, it's surprising that there hasn't been a prior book devoted to just this subject, hair-covering after marriage. As the thought-provoking essays in the book show, this is a custom that varies from woman to woman and community to community. It's not something as specific and set in stone as, say, Kashrut or observing Shabbos. Each woman represented has found halachic justification for her own personal reasons for and method of covering her hair, and none of them are wrong or inferior, just different.

Some of the women struggled for a long time with the custom of hair-covering, others never had any qualms about it, some only started doing it after having been married for a long time, and one woman even stopped covering her hair after she'd been married for awhile. There's even a chapter on frum women who choose not to cover their hair. I personally enjoyed most the essays by the women who struggled or who continue to struggle with this admittedly difficult mitzvah. It's just more interesting to read a story from someone like Khaya, who goes against her community norms by wearing a snood, or Esther, who didn't cover her hair until decades into her marriage, got cancer, and chose to continue wearing a wig after she recovered, than a story from someone like Leah, the Satmar who accepts having to shave her head the day after her marriage because that's just what her community and rabbis dictate, or Devorah, the giyoret who, in spite of struggling with the exact method of covering, happily and excitedly shaved her head after marriage.

Though many of the women wear shaitels (wigs), a number of the women primarily cover their hair with tichels, scarves, snoods, or hats. Some of them do it just because it's halacha, but others have found different or additional reasons for it. Though I'm not even Orthodox, I've always really liked the idea of a married woman covering her hair, like keeping her beautiful hair as a special thing for her husband's eyes only. Only her husband has the joy, honor, and privilege of uncovering her hair, not to be enjoyed by any other man. And whatever one's denominational persuasion, the essays in this book are bound to make anyone think.

Hide & Seek: Jewish Women And Hair Covering by journalist, author, and educator Lynne Schreiber is a charged collection of essays by learned authors about the traditional Judaic practice of married women covering their hair. The testimony is profoundly in favor of following the long-held ways, for reasons that vary from rejecting the casual popular pressures of an increasingly immodest society, to the importance of holding divine law in high esteem, to the significance of not defining ourselves through our physical appearances. A unique addition to Judaic Studies reading lists, Hide & Seek is highly recommended for its thought-provoking and fascinating account.

This book has a lot of different angles and opinions of the same idea, but its not boring. Informative and makes you think. This is a great book for anyone interested in the subject. Halachot are included too!