Hide and Seek: Jewish Women and Hair Covering

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Summary: A unique addition to Judaic Studies reading lists
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Differing views of (covered) hair
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Liberating, refreshing -- eye-opening!
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Differing views of (covered) hair
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting in its own way
Review: 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.