The sheitel, or wig, captivates the imagination of audiences. Youtube is full of content featuring curious folks like Oprah popping into Brooklyn sheitel shops, marvelling at the walls of chestnut bobs and the freshly blown-out barrel curls of their hosts. Instagram influencers tag their sheitels on the grid. Tiktok users flood the comments of frum women, asking, “why are you covering your hair with hair?!”  

Despite what dramatizations about frum ladies will have you believe, more young women are covering their hair than the previous generation, and they’re coming up with innovative, halachically informed ways of doing it – without trumping their personal style or sense of self. 

When an Orthodox Jewish woman gets married, Jewish law stipulates that she should cover her hair. Exactly how her hair should be covered is a question in itself. Scarves, hats, and wigs are common, but how does she know what’s right for her? 

“There’s a big debate,” Rabbanit Leah Sarna told me. Rabbanit Sarna is an expert in halacha and the associate director of the Drisha Institute, a center for women’s advanced study of Jewish texts. “Rav Ovadia Yosef felt that sheitels are not an appropriate way to cover your hair, and that actually scarves and hats are what people need to be wearing – as opposed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe who felt that sheitels were the ideal way that a person should cover.” 

With so many options, are women really that eager to cast away the practice? Esti Shapiro didn’t lob her bob into a lake for no reason – it symbolized her freedom from an oppressive world and a rigid lifestyle. Of course, there’s more to it. 

Mandy Getz, a young mom who creates content on TikTok under the moniker ForJewPage, understands that hair covering is a fraught topic. “The whole situation brings a lot of controversy with the wig looking exactly like real hair,” she said. She stressed to me that covering isn’t about hair being too sexy, or being controlled and oppressed, adding, “When people say this I get so angry. Like, what do you mean?! Should we be ashamed we have hair?” 

The decision to cover isn’t always taken lightly. Most women admit that it’s difficult to go from one day with their hair uncovered to covering it the next day – forever. Mandy pokes fun at sheitels in her content all the time, joking about whipping her sheitel at strangers or throwing it on in a rush. There are myriad factors that play into covering, like community, level of observance, family, and physical comfort. In turn, there are countless styles to choose from – some obvious, and some totally discreet. 

Every mitzvah is beautiful, but it comes with weight and effort. For those of us who struggle with certain mitzvot, it’s inspiring to watch other people reconcile their observance with the demands of the modern world. Between cycling trends, shifting beauty standards, and dizzying social pressure, waking up every day and choosing to do this one thing seems like a feat on its own. 

“Feeling beautiful in how you dress is really important,” Rabbanit Sarna tells me. “In considering all the other elements that play a role in how you cover your hair, feeling beautiful is also cultural.” She pointed out that while some Modern Orthodox women in Israel wear ornate, voluminous mitpachat, it’s uncommon to see them in the diaspora. 

“There’s a real cultural piece of, could I imagine myself walking down the street in this, and would that feel beautiful to me?” she says. 

It’s no surprise that the most traditional styles of sheitel don’t work for everyone – but a lot of women still want to take ownership of this mitzvah. They just don’t want their wigs to look wiggy.

“The hardest part of your sheitel is the front. That’s where you can always tell whether it’s someone’s actual hair or not.” Rabbanit Sarna says. You might be familiar with the band fall, a popular style of wig with a hard front that’s often covered by a headband or a hat. A kippah fall takes this a step further: “The front of your hair is your actual hair and the fall matches your hair perfectly, and you wear your hair down underneath.”

Meira Weiser Statman is the cofounder of Kippah Falls Direct, a sheitel boutique with a fiercely loyal consumer base and one of the most popular distributors of custom-made kippah falls in the world. After spotting her work over and over on Instagram, I reached out to ask her about her product and why women choose hairpieces that look extremely natural. 

“When you see your own scalp showing in front, where you just pull your hair over it and show your part in the front, nobody can really tell it’s a wig.” She told me. “So it’s kind of like that private thing that they want to know they’re doing. I think of it as being between them and God – nobody needs to know.”

According to Rabbanit Sarna, one of the determinant factors in head covering is the concept of Dat Yehudit, the ways of Jewish women. “There are so many ways of understanding what this concept of Dat Yehudit is. And that’s what gives rise to all these different practices,” she says, adding, “Does that mean the ways of Jewish women for all time? Does that mean the ways of Jewish women within a three-block radius of me? Is it contextual based on what’s the standard practice in America?” It could be argued that if the practice is commonplace enough, it sufficiently encapsulates the ways of Jewish women. 

A generation ago, fewer Modern Orthodox women covered their hair outside the home. The kippah fall is a recent response to a new generation of women who want to cover, which Sarna attributes to “an explosion of Torah education.” Most young Modern Orthodox women have spent a year in seminary before college, while few women in their mothers’ generation did. “We went to Modern Orthodox, Religious Zionist seminaries and got this phenomenal Talmud education there. There’s a reclamation of ownership over Jewish texts that didn’t used to exist. Hair covering is one of the most obvious places generational divides play out.” 

The religious world isn’t immune to trends, either. Meira thinks we’re trending away from hats. – “Certainly a hat for every outfit, which was very ‘in’ 15-20 years ago, isn’t as in style anymore. That’s why people who don’t usually cover their hair are even coming to buy a piece for shul so they can be covered – for me that’s always surprising, and it’s more and more and more.” 

Despite the reclamation of text, tradition, and tresses, sheitels are still controversial in and out of the Orthodox world. Flyers distributed in Monsey and Lakewood called for families to “Erase the lace,” declaring full-coverage lace front wigs assur. “If you’re married, look the part,” one flyer implored women. Nevertheless, new styles persist. 

“At the end of the day everyone makes judgements constantly,” Mandy says. “Whether it’s your clothes, how smart you are, or your religious level. Keep reminding yourself that no one knows you better than you know yourself.” 

Every woman I spoke to emphasized that choosing to cover is complex. 

“I know it’s such a Gen Z word, but whatever. It’s fluid,” Meira says. “You could start this way and decide it’s not enough for you. You could stop covering your hair, or you could come back to it.” A lot of women who struggle with hair covering still want to stay in the game, making it work for their needs. “It’s going to change over the course of your married life. It doesn’t have to be one thing.” 

When Orthodoxy is formatted for public consumption, women are reduced to tropes that rarely centre on finding power, comfort, or meaning in their religious lives. In response to series like My Unorthodox Life, frum women took to social media to share stories and anecdotes about their Orthodox lives – balancing work, families, tradition, and Torah education. 

But still, what isn’t visible in a hashtag, and often unrecognizable to others, are the deeply nuanced and ongoing personal journeys that women take to carry forward tradition. 

The post The Bride, The Wig, The Gram appeared first on Jewcy.

In isolation, the dream blunt rotation meme went viral: A fantasy league selection of people we’d smoke a blunt with. Often absurd, surreal combinations: The cast of Scooby Doo, Food Network stars, the animatronics of Chuck E. Cheese. 

I thought about mine.

What do people on this list have in common? Atypical, sometimes controversial ties to Jewishness and media. They often make people uncomfortable. I assume they’re excellent conversationalists.  

I like problematic people. I like when people say the wrong thing. I like when people brush against ideological orthodoxy – even when I disagree. It makes for good gossip. 

I just think that if somebody tells me I shouldn’t like something, or if I shouldn’t read something, I’m going to want to try it. I love drama, I love controversy, and I love interesting conversation. There is nothing worse than being in a group of people signalling their shared values to each other for hours – I’m not a university student, I don’t need to filter for sensibilities at my dinner table. 

I want to get litty and I want to gather. I present my dream blunt rotation: Shabbat dinner edition.

Azealia Banks

The year 212 came out was the most pivotal era of my life, when I felt like the main character all the time. She lifted me into consciousness like Pharoah’s daughter lifting the baby Moshe Rabenu from the Nile. The synthy beat and aggressive lyrics have the ability to transport me to freshman pub crawls, dance floors, and house parties in crusty living rooms. 

Azealia takes hold of the media in moments of controversy – in the most ephemeral, clickbaity sense. Journalists don’t seem to know what to make of her, and her apologists rarely manifest outside stan Twitter. 

When, in February of 2021, the artist declared, “I’m Jewish now,” in the caption of a now-deleted Instagram post, Jewish thought leaders and the crusty Twitterati alike decried her as “problematic,” opining that it was antisemitic of her to declare herself Jewish without deferring to the proper channels. What followed was a moment of “backlash” that Insider helpfully qualified as not “the first time Banks has caused a stir with her social-media presence.”

But did anybody think to invite her to Friday night dinner? 

If there’s anything Banks has demonstrated during her career, is that’s being labelled problematic means basically nothing if you use it too many times. Do we start with the homophobia, or ask about the chicken blood in her closet? The cat bones? Her feud with Grimes? 

And for that, I’m extending an invitation. 

Ivanka Trump

If I knew Ivanka personally I would text her and say, “Hey Vanky, Friday night chez moi?” And she’d reply something like, “Yes bitch!” and I’d seat her husband next to my boyfriend so they can distract each other. 

Ivanka’s Judaism is fascinating to me. I wish she talked about it more, but it’s understandable that she doesn’t. If I were her, I’d be mum on the details too. Still, I wonder: What does she think when she leafs through the pages of her siddur? Does she pray sincerely? 

Is it lonely? 

Politics are verboten at my Shabbos table unless I feel like talking about them. But as a Canadian held hostage by American media for my entire life, I don’t ever want to hear what people think about the last president of the United States ever again. I want to hear Ivanka talk about Karlie Kloss and true crime. I want to ask her about who she follows on Instagram – what does she think of Leandra Medine Cohen, David Portnoy, and Billie Eilish? How plugged into the pop culture zeitgeist is she?

In a searing Vanity Fair essay, her ex-best friend writes, “[it] is nearly impossible to ignore when the person who used to pluck ingrown hairs from your bikini line suddenly appoints herself to the role of unelected public official and begins to torch democracy.” She makes a good point: It’s hard to be neutral when talking about a Trump – especially when you have such high expectations. 

But I can also attest that I come from no such vantage point, and the extension of my invitation to dinner would be on entirely neutral political lines. And for the record, I bet she and Karlie text all day long. 

Leah McSweeney

I’ve never actually watched the Real Housewives of New York, but I’ve followed Leah McSweeney on Instagram for years. I didn’t even realize she was a Housewife – she seems so chill. She has good taste. She cavorts with the likes of Azealia Banks, Hari Nef and Cat Marnell on Instagram, swims nude in a grey lake, and poses in camo pants and heels against brick walls. In another photo, she’s tuning in virtually to a Shabbat dinner that was aired on the show. 

McSweeney chose to document parts of her conversion to Orthodox Judaism on the series. Her sincerity is moving: She could approach this glibly, but she doesn’t. She genuinely wants to learn. 

Of course, what’s shown on screen and what she actually experiences are totally different. She is currently undergoing a profound transition, and her audience is reconciling that with a public image that doesn’t fit squarely into a box. 

“It’s so nerve-wracking. You know, Dave Chapelle likes to say that he never talks about being Muslim in public, because he thinks his religion is so beautiful he doesn’t want to be a stain on it because of whatever he does. Filming The Real Housewives of New York and talking about it made me feel so anxious. I didn’t want to look exploitative. And I was worried, because I have such an immense respect for all religion but obviously especially for Judaism. And I wanted to get words of encouragement and welcome, but I was also very worried about being judged.”

The critiques from viewers come in – why is she using her phone on Yom Kippur? Why is she live streaming a Shabbat dinner if she’s trying to be Orthodox? 

Nellie Bowles, who writes Chosen By Choice, describes the embarrassment that comes with wading into Judaism, writing, “there are times you’re going to mess it up or feel like there are too many rules to ever learn in one life, and that’s (I hope? I think?) normal. ” Imagine how McSweeney feels, having her observance picked apart. My hope for her is that she ignores the naysayers and settles into observance when she’s ready. 

I’d seat her beside Azealia because they absolutely know each other. 

Trisha Paytas

Where McSweeney’s approach to Judaism can be described as “thoughtful”, Trisha’s has long been tinged with the P-word (pr*blematic). Their OOTD for last year’s Rosh Hashanah was an IDF t-shirt and a beret. They slathered an apple with honey and resolved for a “sweet, sweet lovin’ and a sweet, sweet ass” for 5781. The Jews were not pleased. 

Scaachi Koul wrote in her profile on Trisha, “I’ve been watching Paytas since I was 16, and even when they faltered, I believed in their redemption.” But by the time the piece was published, Trisha had turned on Koul, saying, “You disgusting little rat. You should not get to talk to another human being as long as you live. You are the bottom of the barrel scum pig of the universe.”

I, too, want to believe in their redemption. Without extending too much judgement, I’m both horrified and fascinated by her relationship to Judaism. On one hand, she’s very publicly wrong about everything she says and does – on the other, it’s surreal to see her embrace Judaism before such a captive audience. Are they genuinely invested, is it because of their husband, or do they do it because they revel in the negative reactions? Ever the elusive influencer, it’s hard to say, and probably not helpful to speculate. 

Ironically, by the time the piece was published, Trisha had turned on Koul, telling her, “You disgusting little rat. You should not get to talk to another human being as long as you live. You are the bottom of the barrel scum pig of the universe.”

Harsh, babes! I think they’d add a lot of dimension to the crowd, although I’d probably sit a little far away.

Gwyneth Paltrow 

I feel the same way about Gwyneth Paltrow that a lot of my friends feel about the Lubavitcher Rebbe: Publicly polite reverence, privately fanatical. Her critics say she’s out of touch. At worst, she’s dangerous – we have yet to study the long-term effects of our jade eggs, although mine hasn’t fallen out yet. 

I don’t know if I want to be her or be near her. When she admitted in her cookbook It’s All Easy to “[settling] for pasta with butter and cheese,” I allowed myself to also settle for pasta with butter and cheese for years. Every time I put on a thoughtful cashmere sweater and white sneakers, I ask my boyfriend if I’m giving off Goop vibes. Gwyneth is probably the only famous person I would actually be stunned to meet.

As a patrilineal Jew and possible covert convert (the jury’s still out on what happened there), Gwyneth has undoubtedly been present for some sick Shabbat dinners. Perhaps she’s hosted a few. I make her slow cooker brisket recipe every year for Yom Tov. I’d probably serve that and say, “GP, do you recognize this?!” and then cry.

In 2017, journalist Mattie Kahn wrote about trendy, Instagrammable initiatives that tied Jewish traditions like Shabbat dinners to meditation and wellness:

“Revived in an era of wellness retreats and digital detoxes, ancient Jewish rituals like Shabbat and Rosh Chodesh celebrations have found a sudden resonance unattached from the strictures of the tradition that invented them. Whether the rabbis like it or not, they’ve been Goop-ed.”

I want to be the patron saint of blonde women in cashmere sweater sets, a dream I’ve realized thanks to GP. In her honour, I’d microdose psilocybin by sprinkling it into the hors d’oeuvres. I’m sure it would liven the evening.

Here’s what I hope would happen: Gwyneth might confess to watching Trisha’s mukbangs. Leah and Ivanka would play Jewish geography – do they both know Rabbi Lookstein? Ivanka would admit that she listens to 212 every morning on the elliptical. Does she also read Tablet for Liel? Would Azealia light up the room with her opinions or her outfit? 

As life returns to normal, with or without c*vid, and people are getting together again, I want to be challenged and to think about this world differently. I want to know what people are really thinking. There’s no better place than the dinner table, between healthy pours of wine and candlelight, where conversation can flow freely, and we can laugh and gather again. 

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