I converted to Judaism a long time before I got married. I always anticipated covering my head when I got married, but when the time came, I just felt too odd, especially since I was living in a low-Jew area and married a non-Jew.*
Now I’ve been married almost a year. And more and more I find myself covering my head and feeling more and more comfortable that way. But still, in public, it can feel kind of odd, especially when people stare or ask questions. Wearing a baseball hat or other “mainstream” hat tends to attract less attention, but scarves are really more comfortable and less hot.
Are there any other women here who cover their hair or heads on a regular/daily basis? Anyone else who is a convert and does it? Did it feel just as weird to you in public when you started? How do you explain to employers, if at all? Do you wear scarves or go all secret-spy in hats?
You don’t have to cover your hair as a Jew to participate. If you cover your hair daily for any reason, I wanna hear about it.
*yes, I’m a crappy Jew sometimes. Yes, I know halacha doesn’t generally require women marrying non-Jews to cover their heads, but we aren’t going to debate that here. No, really, do not hijack this thread to discuss halacha.
In the cold weather I toss a scarf or muffler around my head to keep my ears warm . . . I wear my hair up in a chignon, so hats are pretty much out of the question (which is a shame, as I have a collection of adorable vintage hats!).
Seriously, I’m having a hard time picturing you with a collection of lovely antique hats and not wearing them. Have you tried wearing your chignon lower or anything like that?
That’s pretty hardcore. Even the orthodox girls I know show their hair in front of their girlfriends (in private, obviously).
I’m not a fan of wigs. At all. I likes the scarves and hats. The problem is that I also like very very short hair underneath, and so I tend to look uber-frum or like a cancer patient. :smack:
I met a woman who was very Orthodox. I complimented her on hair once - beautifully shiny, dark brown and thick, and she laughed. “You’ve never seen my hair.” (I’ve also never seen a lovelier wig.) She explained that she believed that only her husband should see her hair, and that it was waist length and salt and pepper in color.
Another lady I know is a very strict… oh, shoot, I might not remember this right - Pentacostal? Always wears skirts, doesn’t cut her hair or wear makeup. She wears a small, oval shaped hair ornament pinned into her hair that I can best describe as a doily. I asked her if it was a religious thing, and she explained that in her religion, women cover their heads when they pray. She said, “I have three children, one with serious special needs, so I’m praying all the time and I don’t always have time to find my hat.”
I like hats, myself, but don’t get too many chances to wear them. The Renaissance faire is one opportunity I always take, though.
Sorry for the hijack, no personal experience here.
I am familiar with the covering of hair in some Muslim faiths, but did not realize it was also Orthodox Judaism? Anyone care to enlighten an idiot as to why this is?
It’s called tznius, and it basically the concept of modesty. Covering the hair after marriage, and wearing skirts below the knee and shirts below the elbow. One popular retailer is tznius.com.
An extremely basic page about this topic can be found here. More on this can be found at Ask Moses, which is kinda like a Straight Dope about Jews. You can ask a Rabbi anything at any time, live. Seriously, Ask Moses answers almost anything you could imagine.
This is the roughest outline of tznius. See above sources for more, or start a thread.
Bless you, Inkleberry , for that Ask Moses. site. I have a lot of questions about Judaism, as I have a sister and a SIL who are Jewish, but I never wanted to ask them for fear of offending.
This doesn’t answer your OP at all, but it made me think of a client I used to have who wore a baseball hat all the time. I saw her twice a week for 4 years before I ever saw her without the hat, and the first time I did, it was a huge shock. In the 2 following years, I probably saw her a handful of times with no hat. It was definitely a case where the hat became such an integral part of her that it was more noticeable when she didn’t have it on.
Thanks inkleberry for the tznius link, they have cool instruction for tying scarves.
My issues is that while I like wearing scarves around the house (as a practical, rather than a religious thing), I don’t wear them out, because while some people can look romantic and/or cool and ethnic, I look like an eastern european peasant.
Hopefully, now I can at least pop out to the shops in the headscarf I’ve been cleaning the house in, and not look as ridiculous as usual.
My grandmother covers her head about 90% of the time, usually with one or more wollen bobble hats. She has a neuralgia which is worse in the cold, and causes her severe headaches, so she lives in mortal fear of draughts. Since she’s kind of got the crazy old lady vibe going for her anyway, I don’t think it’s ever been an issue for her.
Some Mennonite and Amish women cover their head with prayer caps. It is because of St. Paul’s injuction against women praying bareheaded. There are different Christian sects that follow various modesty customs. A fair number of Protestant conservative sects use headcoverings and believe in women only wearing skirts. The ones I’ve encountered tend to be Free Brethren, and Calvinist Presbyterian.
A Return To Modesty is a good book about a modern woman and tznius.
I don’t cover my hair everyday, but about twice a week–I will go to work wearing a head wrap or a scarf. Most times it’s because I’m having a bad hair day (happens a lot down here in Humid World), but sometimes it’s simply because I feel more feminine and pretty wearing one.
“Aunt Jemima” gets thrown at me every once and awhile. It bothers me, especially since I consider it to be one of those borderline racist comments, but I see lots of women who have their hair covered and they look nice. I think I do too.
I’m Orthodox but not married yet, and thus don’t cover my hair, although most of my married female friends do when around unrelated men. (They all uncover it at home with just family and female friends, so I’ve certainly seen my good friends’ real hair.) They tend to go with scarves or hats in more casual public situations (the bun style of scarf-tying has been particularly trendy the last couple of years,) wigs or falls in more formal settings, and snoods only in casual, all-frum settings. (A fall is a 3/4 wig - you can wear a headband or scarf to cover the front end of the fall so that you use your own hair to make the hairline, but keep your hair mostly covered. Generally, they’re quite good, but you can tell if you look very closely since they fade a bit with time and sun exposure, and the hair at the hairline will be a shade or two darker than the hair behind the headband.) I’ve been asked by non-Jewish friends why all the married frum women in the neighborhood seem to wear headbands
It’s apparently considered unprofessional to wear hats or scarves in most work situations, so they tend to wear wigs rather than try to explain to employers and coworkers. A guy I dated once told me that a frum woman in his office had been dubbed Headband Girl (behind her back) because she always wore a fall to work.
I’d probably lean more towards scarves than hats, and reserve a sheitel for days that I felt like looking pretty or just plain having hair. I’ve had long hair all my life, and it would be easier to fit into a scarf than under anything else, and labs are casual enough work environments that nobody would care what I wore on my head.
I go through periods of time when it simply feels right to have my head covered, and that’s when I do it. Mostly with a bandana tied in a triangle. I wear them when I’m feeling in need of grounding or settling - it’s very calming and soothing. They work double-duty in the summertime to keep the hair off my neck, and as an “air-conditioning device” dipped in cold water before being tied on. I take it off to pray or work magick, though.
I do get a few people asking me if I’m Orthodox, and I just simply say no (because I’m not). It makes me sort of scratch my head (metaphorically) now when people ask that, as I have a very visible and Wiccan-looking tattoo right on my chest. How do people know enough about Orthodoxy to know about head covering but not know that tattoos are verbotten?
I hadn’t really put a seasonal thing on it, but now that I think about it, I haven’t worn one all winter and I did three times this week. Interesting…
WOW! There are some gorgeous skirts and headscarves and stuff there! I love all the scarf tying ideas. I think I may be branching out past the bandanas this year! Thanks, inkleberry!
So I’m now enamored of the scarf looks, but I have a stupid newbie question:
Do you bind up your hair first and then wrap the scarf around it? I have really long hair, and it just refuses to cooperate with these tying methods. Am I supposed to put it in a low bun or something first?
