Jewish religious clothing

Jewish religious clothing is apparel worn by Jews in connection with the practice of the Jewish religion. Jewish religious clothing has changed over time while maintaining the influences of biblical commandments and Jewish religious law regarding clothing and modesty (tzniut). Contemporary styles in the wider culture also have a bearing on Jewish religious clothing, although this extent is limited.

Hasidic men in Borough Park, Brooklyn. The man on the left is wearing a shtreimel and a tallit, and the other man traditional Hasidic garb: long suit, black hat, and gartel.

Historical background

The Torah set forth rules for dress that, following later rabbinical tradition, were interpreted as setting Jews apart from the communities in which they lived.[1]

Classical Greek and Roman sources, that often ridicule many aspects of Jewish life, do not remark on their clothing and subject it to caricature, as they do when touching on Celtic, Germanic, and Persian peoples, and mock their different modes of dress.[2] Cultural anthropologist Eric Silverman argues that Jews in the late antiquity period used clothes and hair-styles like the people around them.[3]

At 2 Maccabees 4:12, it is said that the Maccabees slaughtered Jewish youths guilty of Hellenizing in wearing caps typical of Greek youths.[4]

In many Islamic countries, Jewish men typically wore tunics, instead of trousers. In the same countries, many different local regulations emerged to make Christian and Jewish dhimmis look distinctive in their public appearance. In 1198, the Almohad emir Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur decreed that Jews must wear a dark blue garb, with very large sleeves and a grotesquely oversized hat. His son altered the colour to yellow, a change that may have influenced Catholic ordinances some time later.[5] German ethnographer Erich Brauer (1895–1942) noted that in Yemen of his time, Jews were not allowed to wear clothing of any color besides blue.[6] Earlier, in Jacob Saphir's time (1859), they would wear outer garments that were "utterly black".

Men's clothing

Many Jewish men historically wore turbans or habits,[7] tunics,[8] cloaks, and sandals in summer.[9] Oriental Jewish men in late-Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine would wear the tarbush on their heads.[10]

A Yemenite Jewish elder wearing a sudra with central hat

Tallit, tzitzit

The tallit is a Jewish prayer shawl worn while reciting morning prayers as well as in the synagogue on Shabbat and holidays. In Yemen, the wearing of such garments was not unique to prayer time alone, but was worn the entire day.[11] In many Ashkenazi communities, a tallit is worn only after marriage. The tallit has special twined and knotted fringes known as tzitzit attached to its four corners. It is sometimes referred to as arba kanfot (lit. 'four corners') although the term is more common for a tallit katan, an undergarment with tzitzit. According to the Biblical commandments, tzitzit must be attached to any four-cornered garment, and a thread with a blue dye known as tekhelet is supposed to be included in the tzitzit. Jewish men are buried in a tallit in addition to tachrichim (burial shrouds).

A Jewish woman praying with a tallit and tefillin

Since tzitzit are considered to be a time-bound commandment, only men are required to wear them.[12] Authorities have differed as to whether women are prohibited, permitted or encouraged to wear them. Medieval authorities tended toward leniency, with more prohibitive rulings gaining in precedence since the 16th century.[13] Conservative Judaism regards women as exempt from wearing tzitzit, not as prohibited,[14] and the tallit has become more common among Conservative women since the 1970s.[15][16] Some progressive Jewish women choose to take on the obligations of tzitzit and tefillin,[17] and it has become common for a girl to receive a tallit when she becomes bat mitzvah.[16][18][19]

Kippah

A kippah or yarmulke (also called a kappel or skull cap) is a thin, slightly-rounded skullcap traditionally worn at all times by Orthodox Jewish men, and sometimes by both men and women in Conservative and Reform communities. Its use is associated with demonstrating respect and reverence for God.[20] Jews in Arab lands did not traditionally wear yarmulkes, but rather larger, rounded, brimless hats, such as the kufi or tarboush.

Kittel

A kittel (Yiddish: קיטל‎) is a white, knee-length, cotton robe worn by Jewish prayer leaders and some Orthodox Jews on the High Holidays. In some families, the head of the household wears a kittel at the Passover seder,[21] while in other families all married men wear them.[21][22] In many Ashkenazi Orthodox circles, it is customary for the groom to wear a kittel under the chuppah (wedding canopy).

Women's clothing
Jewish Yemenite women and children in a refugee camp near Aden, Yemen in 1949. According to Jewish religious law, a married woman must cover her hair

Married observant Jewish women wear a scarf (tichel or mitpahat), snood, hat, beret, or sometimes a wig (sheitel) in order to conform with the requirement of Jewish religious law that married women cover their hair.[23][24]

Jewish women were distinguished from others in the western regions of the Roman Empire by their custom of veiling in public. The custom of veiling was shared by Jews with others in the eastern regions.[25] The custom petered out among Roman women, but was retained by Jewish women as a sign of their identification as Jews. The custom has been retained among Orthodox women.[26] Evidence drawn from the Talmud shows that pious Jewish women would wear shawls over their heads when they would leave their homes, but there was no practice of fully covering the face.[27] In the medieval era, Jewish women started veiling their faces under the influence of the Islamic societies they lived in.[28] In some Muslim regions such as in Baghdad, Jewish women veiled their faces until the 1930s. In the more lax Kurdish regions, Jewish women did not cover their faces.[29]

Jewish vs. gentile customs

Based on the rabbinic traditions of the Talmud, the 12th century philosopher Maimonides forbade emulating gentile dress and apparel when those same items of clothing have immodest designs, or that they are connected somehow to an idolatrous practice, or are worn because of some superstitious practice (i. e., "the ways of an Amorite").[30]

A question was posed to 15th-century Rabbi Joseph Colon (Maharik) regarding "gentile clothing" and whether or not a Jew who wears such clothing transgresses a biblical prohibition that states, "You shall not walk in their precepts" (Leviticus 18:3). In a protracted responsum, Rabbi Colon wrote that any Jew who might be a practising physician is permitted to wear a physician's cape (traditionally worn by gentile physicians on account of their expertise in that particular field of science and their wanting to be recognized as such), and that the Jewish physician who wore it has not infringed upon any law in the Torah, even though Jews were not wont to wear such garments in former times.[31] He noted that there is nothing attributed to "superstitious" practice by their wearing such a garment, while, at the same time, there isn't anything promiscuous or immodest about wearing such a cape, neither is it worn out of haughtiness. Moreover, he has understood from Maimonides (Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim 11:1) that there is no commandment requiring a fellow Jew to seek out and look for clothing which would make them stand out as "different" from what is worn by gentiles, but rather, only to make sure that what a Jew might wear is not an "exclusive" gentile item of clothing. He noted that wearing a physician's cape is not an exclusive gentile custom, noting, moreover, that since the custom to wear the cape varies from place to place, and that, in France, physicians do not have it as a custom to wear such capes, it cannot therefore be an exclusive Gentile custom.[31]

According to Rabbi Colon, modesty was still a criterion for wearing gentile clothing, writing: "...even if Israel made it as their custom [to wear] a certain item of clothing, while the Gentiles [would wear] something different, if the Israelite garment should not measure up to [the standard established in] Judaism or of modesty more than what the Gentiles hold as their practice, there is no prohibition whatsoever for an Israelite to wear the garment that is practised among the Gentiles, seeing that it is in [keeping with] the way of fitness and modesty just as that of Israel."[31]

Rabbi Joseph Karo (1488–1575), following in the footsteps of Colon, ruled in accordance with Colon's teaching in his seminal work Beit Yosef on the Tur (Yoreh De'ah §178), and in his commentary Kessef Mishneh (on Maimonides' Mishne Torah, Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim 11:1), making the wearing of gentile clothing contingent upon three factors: 1) that they not be promiscuous clothing; 2) not be clothing linked to an idolatrous practice; 3) not be clothing that was worn because of some superstitious practice (or "the way of the Amorites"). Rabbi Moses Isserles (1530–1572) opines that to these strictures can be added one additional prohibition of wearing clothes that are a "custom" for them (the gentiles) to wear, that is to say, an exclusive gentile custom where the clothing is immodest.[32] Rabbi and posek Moshe Feinstein (1895–1986) subscribed to the same strictures.[33]

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See also

References
  1. Eric Silverman, A Cultural History of Jewish Dress, A&C Black, 2013, ISBN 978-0-857-85209-0 p.'xv: 'Jews dressed differently as God's outcasts. But Jews also dressed differently in premodern Europe because their rabbis understood any emulation of non-Jews as a violation of the divine Law ass revealed by God to Moses atop Mount Sinai. The Five Books of Moses, after all, together called the Torah, clearly specify that Jews must adhere to a particular dress code-modesty, for example, and fringes. The very structure of the cosmos demanded nothing less. Clothing, too, served as a "fence" that protected Jews from the profanities and pollutions of the non-Jewish societies in which they dwelled. From this angle, Jews dressed distinctively as God's elect.'
  2. Eric Silverman, A Cultural History of Jewish Dress, A&C Black, 2013, ISBN 978-0-857-85209-0 pp.xv, 24
  3. Silverman, Eric (2013). A Cultural History of Jewish Dress. A&C Black. pp. 24–26. ISBN 9780857852090.
  4. Silverman, Eric (2013). A Cultural History of Jewish Dress. A&C Black. p. 25. ISBN 9780857852090.
  5. Silverman p. 48
  6. Brauer, Erich (1934). Ethnologie der Jemenitischen Juden. 7. Heidelberg: Carl Winters Kulturgeschichte Bibliothek, I. Reihe: Ethnologische bibliothek., p. 79.
  7. Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 29b; Yosef Qafih, Halikhot Teman, Ben-Zvi Institute: Jerusalem 1982, p. 186
  8. Erich Brauer, Ethnologie der jemenitischen Juden, Heidelberg 1934, p. 81 (German)
  9. Babylonian Talmud (Baba Bathra 57b)
  10. Kahlenberg, Caroline R. (Feb 2018). "The Tarbush Transformation: Oriental Jewish Men and the Significance of Headgear in Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 25 June 2019. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  11. Yehuda Ratzaby, Ancient Customs of the Yemenite Jewish Community (ed. Shalom Seri and Israel Kessar), Tel-Aviv 2005, p. 30 (Hebrew)
  12. Babylonian Talmud (Kiddushin 29a): "Every affirmative biblical command that is contingent upon time (e. g., residing in a Sukkah on the 15th day of the lunar month Tishri, or donning Tefillin during the day but not at night), men are obligated to perform them, but women are exempt from doing them." This teaching has been the common practice among Jews in all places for ages, and is forever perpetuated in the legal codes known to the Jewish nation, such as in Maimonides' Code of Jewish Law, the Mishne Torah (Hil. Avodah Zarah 12:3). The same Posek (decisor) has, however, cited its leniency, where women are permitted to wear them if they wish to do so.
  13. Brody, Shlomo (October 15, 2010). "Why Do Orthodox Women Not Wear Tefillin or Tallit?". The Jerusalem Post.
  14. Signs and Symbols
  15. Rebecca Shulman Herz (2003). "The Transformation of Tallitot: How Jewish Prayer Shawls Have Changed Since Women Began Wearing Them". Women in Judaism: Contemporary Writings. University of Toronto. 3 (2). Archived from the original on 2012-03-17. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  16. Gordan, Rachel (2013). Leonard Jay Greenspoon (ed.). Fashioning Jews: Clothing, Culture, and Commerce. Purdue University Press. pp. 167–176. ISBN 978-1-55753-657-0.
  17. Halpern, Avigayil (22 January 2014). "Women, Tefillin, and Double Standards". My Jewish Learning. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  18. Carin Davis (25 May 2010). Life, Love, Lox: Real-World Advice for the Modern Jewish Girl. Running Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-7624-4041-2.
  19. Debra Nussbaum Cohen (2001). Celebrating Your New Jewish Daughter: Creating Jewish Ways to Welcome Baby Girls Into the Covenant : New and Traditional Ceremonies. Jewish Lights Publishing. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-58023-090-2.
  20. Kippah
  21. Eider, Shimon (1998). Halachos of Pesach. Feldheim publishers. ISBN 0-87306-864-5.
  22. Pesach - The Kittel, Four Cups, And Afikomen (PDF), Teaneck, New Jersey: Kof-K
  23. Sherman, Julia (November 17, 2010). "She goes covered".
  24. Schiller, Mayer (1995). "The Obligation of Married Women to Cover Their Hair" (PDF). The Journal of Halacha (30 ed.). pp. 81–108. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  25. Shaye J. D. Cohen (17 January 2001). The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. University of California Press. pp. 31–. ISBN 978-0-520-22693-7.
  26. Judith Lynn Sebesta; Larissa Bonfante (2001). The World of Roman Costume. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp. 188–. ISBN 978-0-299-13854-7.
  27. James B. Hurley (3 July 2002). Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 270–. ISBN 978-1-57910-284-5.
  28. Mary Ellen Snodgrass (17 March 2015). World Clothing and Fashion: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Social Influence. Routledge. pp. 337–. ISBN 978-1-317-45167-9.
  29. Reeva Spector Simon; Michael Laskier; Sara Reguer (8 March 2003). The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times. Columbia University Press. pp. 212–. ISBN 978-0-231-50759-2.
  30. Maimonides, Mishne Torah (Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim 11:1)
  31. Questions & Responsa of Rabbi Joseph Colon, responsum # 88
  32. Yoreh De'ah §178:1
  33. Igrot Moshe (Epistles of Moshe), Yoreh De'ah I, responsum # 81

Further reading
  • Rubens, Alfred, (1973) A History of Jewish Costume. ISBN 0-297-76593-0.
  • Silverman, Eric. (2013) A Cultural History of Jewish Dress. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-84788-286-8.
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