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.

30-year-old Manhattan native Josh Ostrovsky, AKA The Fat Jew, is a thrice-kicked-out-of-college performance artist with 1.3 million followers on Instagram. He’s what your parents might call a meshuggeneh—but a very rich one. The 6-foot-2 humorist, known for his vertical ponytail and absurd public antics, gained mainstream notoriety last summer when a video of him leading a group of homeless people in a Citi Bike ‘Soul Cycle’ class went viral.

Only in America can The Fat Jew be everything that The Fat Jew is: over-indulgent and borderline-psychotic, but with an original, twisted wit that has companies like Virgin Mobile paying him big bucks to sit in a bath of ramen noodles. With an “anti-how-to” book in the works and scripted shows sold to both Comedy Central and Amazon, The Fat Jew is more than just an Instagram sensation—he’s the CEO of an ironic personality cult based on utter insanity.

We met at the DMV on 34^th st and 9^th ave, where Ostrovsky takes meetings and “gets things done” thanks to the roomy seating and arctic air-conditioning (and also because he can scream on the phone about anything). Post-interview, I got him to do some killer yoga poses outside Penn Station, where we breathed in the glorious fumes of passing buses and a halal cart.

What’s a day in the life of the Fat Jew?

I wake up, sometimes in my bed, sometimes face down in Queens. I don’t know how—sometimes I just end up in Queens. I’m like, where I am? Oh yeah, in fucking Queens. Cause like, how did you get to Queens? I can imagine how I got to Brooklyn, but how did I get to Queens? I basically avoid doing adult shit at all times.

What about when you have to pay your bills? Do you sit down and do that?

No, I have an intern. Chu Chu, my bisexual Filipino intern. He goes to the New School and gets college credit for this. I sign some paper and write him a performance review.

I spend most of the day just thinking of awesome shit to do. Now I have a book deal, so I’m doing that. It used to be that just Virgin Mobile would pay me to fill a Jacuzzi up with ramen and sit in it.

How did it get to the point where Virgin Mobile wanted to pay you to sit in a ramen Jacuzzi?

Because brands are just into crazy shit now, because the kids are into that. There’s so much shit on the Internet; nothing is ever crazy enough. At this point I have a loyal following of runaways, weirdos, and goths.

You’re like their god.

Totally. A brand will say: “You have a big following of gothic Hispanic millenials, which is a demographic we really would love to try to target,” and then they’ll just pay me to do some shit. At this point, they don’t even care; I can pretty much do whatever I want. If I want to fill a hot tub with gazpacho, that’s fine—if I want to rent a Ferrari and throw a cheetah in it for no reason, down—they don’t care.

Does that surprise you?

Yeah, it wasn’t always this way. Even five years ago they didn’t really get it, now they do.

Well, now you’ve built yourself up to the point where people besides freaks know you.

Totally. It’s not all just goth Dominican teens. Now there are moms and dads.

And you must have all the Jewish girls on your shit thinking you’ll be their big Jewish baby daddy.

Yes—I’ve got Rachels and Laurens for miles. I’m the Magellan of Rachels. I also have a lot of Liats and Yaels; got it all.

And now you have a book deal. Cha-ching.

Yeah, so now I’m getting paid to basically write, so I’m trying to develop my methods. I’ll light a bunch of scented candles and sit naked and work on my book.

It’s basically going to be the anti “how-to” book. I’ll tell you what you shouldn’t be doing; you shouldn’t use a Doritos bag as a condom with a rubber band—it’s not going to work to prevent pregnancy. I’m like the fuck-up older brother you wish you had who could have told you what not to do. If you wouldn’t have done it, your life would have been amazing. I’ve professionally made bad decisions; so learn from that.

Did the book people contact you?

A bunch of people reached out and said I should probably be writing some of this shit down. At this point there’s so much ridiculous shit, and the world needs to see this. I’m basically the new James Joyce.

You sound like Kanye right now.

Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do. He’s like, ‘I’m the new Shakespeare meets Steve Jobs meets Hilary Clinton,’ which is a dope thing to say. Like, what? But me, I’m basically the new Shel Silverstein—who by the way, my mom fucked.

No way.

Swear to god. In like, 1970.

What’s the deal with your TV show?

I sold a show to Comedy Central. It’s basically about what you’re asking me about. When you take a piece of social media and the end result is me in a nacho cheese fountain with Tyrese—how did I get there?

And sometimes the process leading up to that is not that hilarious—it’s kind of dark—it has a Louie element to it. Sometimes it’s fucking weird. Basically when you’re of the Internet and you don’t do one thing in particular—like, I’m not solely an actor or a writer—you can kind of do anything. Stella Artois just flew me to Cannes to pour rosé on myself and stand around.

So everyone was just super rich and doing crazy shit?

It was just so ridiculous. These Saudi dudes found me and were just like ‘we want to be around him!’ and inducted me into their entourage. I ended up on a yacht party with them, and they told me to come to the back room. So I assumed it was going to be a room full of gold bullion and missiles, and whatever they do in Saudi Arabia, and there was just a live ostrich, and they said, ‘look at it.’ You couldn’t even touch it; they just wanted people to look at it.

Did you always think you’d be famous for just being you?

Yes, sort of. I felt like it would come around. This is still relatively a new thing. Even 10 years ago, to be famous, you had to be on a reality TV show.

Instagram has really skyrocketed your fame.

Initially I thought Instagram was the wrong medium for me, because it has so many rules. I got kicked off three times, and the last time I protested outside their offices and chained myself up. And then I was like, maybe this isn’t right for me—I can’t put up my crazy photos. But then I realized that toning it down a little bit was opening me up to a more mainstream audience. I just can’t put up photos of birthday candles jammed into somebody’s dick hole, lit. That’s won’t fly, but I can still put up kinda crazy shit. Crazy enough for most people.

When you put up tweets from certain celebrities—are they real?

A lot of the tweets are fake. I had some 16-year-old build a program that generates super-authentic looking tweets. Some of the celebrities who I’ve made fake tweets for have come up to me and said they were ridiculously awesome. Like Snoop. He said, “Yo, I’ve seen some of your fake tweets, and I wish I was tweeting that stuff.” There were a couple he wasn’t feeling, but he was much more up on it than I thought.

Now that I’m writing a book, everything is just for inspiration. I’ll put up on Twitter, “If you’re under 20, and Puerto Rican and want to go boogie boarding today, meet me at the beach.” And 12 kids will show up, and we’ll just chill. And that could be inspiration for a chapter. I also do some serious stuff; I run a soup kitchen in Brooklyn.

Are you serious?

No I’m just kidding. Come on; stop. I mean someone should do that, but not me. Also, my dog has a popular Instagram. I’m running a full-scale business of insanity. A sex toy company in Belgium recently hit me up and asked me to be the face of their company; they said I could have a custom toy. Last year we released 1,000 shirts to homeless guys with my face on it. My mom, in her old Jewish woman accent said, “I think I just saw a homeless man in a shirt with your face on it.”

Were your parents really chill growing up?

No, they were uptight doctors. Then they retired and moved to Santa Fe and got so weird. They’re all leather bracelet, bolo ties, denim, and cowboy boots.

I think they’re swingers. They’ll smoke a quarter of a joint, walk the dog for two hours; they’re very Santa Fe. There’s a lot of Jews there. It’s kind of like pre-Boca. My parents retired when they were 50. You go to Santa Fe to tide you over for 20 years. Ten years ago my dad was wearing sensible Rockports and doctors gadgets.

Do you think that has to do with you being so openly insane?

I think it helps. But he’s fucking Russian, like for real. The idea for him, that what I do can be something someone does for a living—for him it was literally like, ‘I don’t even know what you’re saying, what are you trying to do?’

And then one day—I used to be in a rap group called Team Facelift, and we laid a lot of groundwork for shit that people do now, like Riff Raff and Odd Future, we rapped with transvestites, we were on MTV a whole bunch of times. We did all these spots for The Hills, and after that, a check came to my house. I was out all night at a rave, and he opened the check, and it was a Fed Ex thing for $15,000. And I think at that moment he realized I wasn’t just a psycho.

I’m sort of being taken seriously, and sort of not, and it’s so fucking weird, everyday. And that’s all I ever wanted. I wanted everyday to be different. And every day is massively different—except that bowl of cereal in the morning.

You have to have some daily rituals.

I smoke cigarettes a lot. So that happens everyday. The writing is going to be a bit more foreign. They’re going to give me an advance check, and I’m renting an office building in Detroit. Fifteen stories, completely abandoned, but with all the shit in it—dazzling—for $8,000 a month. I’m going to do it for three months. One floor to write my book, and others to do whatever I want. I’m going to turn it into a factory of fucking insanity. I’m going to have a whole floor of garbage, sand, kiddie pools, nectarines… It’s sort of a twist on people renting a cottage in Montauk to write their book; I’m getting an office building in Detroit, because why the fuck not?

What’s the best thing about being Jewish?

Jewish summer camp. There are basically no Jews who don’t go to camp. I learned every single thing I know at Jew camp. I haven’t learned one thing since the day Jew camp ended. How to unhook a bra with your teeth, how to do a roundhouse, how to jerk off on your top bunk so silently and with so little motion that they guy doesn’t wake up on the bottom. I was so Jew camp scene; I went to Eisner Camp.

And your name was inspired from a counselor at camp, right?

Yes, him and this famous pornographer, NYC legend, Al Goldstein. Him and that dude were my inspiration. They were just fat, loud Jews who gave no fucks. Like ‘most people are gonna hate me, but I’m going to do whatever I want.’

What’s the worst part about being a Jew?

Having a dick that looks like a rock shrimp. Also being an old Jew. If you’re an old Christian dude, you can get old, get a motorcycle, and still do killer shit. But the older you get as a Jew, the more you’re just in bad shape. All you talk about is the humidity and how expensive New York is. You just can’t help yourself. As much as I know that I don’t want to be like that, it’s in the genes. Can’t escape it. My parents are always taking about the weather. So not looking forward to that.

I think being an older Jewish woman is cooler. But I’m not down with the chunky-funky necklace Jewish mom jewelry scene. My mom will wear a chunky necklace that looks like it’s made out of found garbage, and it’s like $8,000 from some Dutch artist. It literally looks like trash. So Santa Fe.

What would be your pre-electric chair meal?

I’d want an oil drum full of chopped liver, and cigarettes. If I could chain smoke and be eating chopped liver—kill me; take me now. If I had one more option, I’d probably have a Chilean seabass in a wasabi reduction with a saffron risotto. And a nice vintage Shiraz with hints of leather, oak, and fruit. I’m super tasteful.

http://youtu.be/24jiCZpdNZI

(Images by the author)

The post Spotlight On: The Fat Jew, AKA Josh Ostrovsky appeared first on Jewcy.

Remember in Girls when Shoshanna really, really wanted to lose her virginity, but that guy from camp wouldn’t have sex with her because he didn’t want her to, like, get all clingy?

It’s just like virgins get attached. Or they bleed. You get attached when you bleed.

It turns out, camp guy (Skylar Astin—he went on to play acapella guy in Pitch Perfect) might be a composite of Lena Dunham’s past. Today on Instagram, Lena Dunham offered a #TBT, or Throwback Thursday, to that time in 2005 when she asked Time Out’s sex columnist Jamie Bufalino whether she should disclose her virgin status to the guy she eventually gets down with. Dunham sought out professional help because she had been getting some creepy feedback about her lack o’ sex:

Once you’re 19, people seem to expect that you’ve done it six ways to Sunday. So it can come as quite a shock when a girl my age admits that she’s still on the v-team. In fact, I speak for all my virgin friends when I say that confessing we are virgins has stopped more that one sexual experience from progressing further. It seems to freak guys out, like they think you’re going to get too attached to them if they devirginize you. Either that, or they find it really sexy in a somewhat pervy way.

Bufalino gave her some sage advice, telling Dunham not to worry or rush.

There will be no deadline-setting or peer-pressuring. You will simple live your Intermix-clad, iPod-accessorized, O.C.-obsessed life until you meet a young man who doesn’t give a white about your sexual status, but just wants to express his love for you through three timid thrusts and premature ejaculation.

Aw, now that’s the dream.

The post Real Life Lena Dunham Was a Shoshanna appeared first on Jewcy.

And you thought you were the biggest Girls fan you know. The Girls HBO Instagram account posted a picture of a super fan who “made her #GIRLS love permanent on the back of her leg.”

The reference, based on the Season 2 series premiere when Ray doesn’t understand Shoshanna’s string of text message emoticons, inspired these parody text message screen shots before convincing someone on Team Shosh to get inked, permanently. The tat got a variety of responses from Instagram users, from “omg emoticon love!” to the more expected “even I don’t love emoji’s THAT much.”

Whoever wrote “obsessed! Too bad it was so poorly done.” is such a Marnie.

What do you think of the tattoo?

Previously: Network Jews: Shoshanna, The Scene-Stealing Afterthought on HBO’s ‘Girls’
Would You Buy Lena Dunham’s New ‘Girls’-Inspired Nail Polish?
You Can Buy a Ring With Lena Dunham’s Face on it on Etsy

The post Someone Got a Tattoo of Shoshanna’s ‘Girls’ Emoticon Sentence appeared first on Jewcy.

As Operation Pillar of Defense continues, the Israeli Defense Forces are simultaneously making waves in the social media realm. In addition to their much-discussed Twitter activity, Facebook updates, Instagram account, and surprisingly high production value Tumblr, it appears that the IDF is in fact on Pinterest, that last bastion of online time-suck.

Boasting 161 followers, the IDF follows only two Pinterest accounts: United With Israel (“World’s largest grassroots pro-Israel Community!”), and the U.S. Army. Their five pin boards, which showcase soldiers, events, humanitarian aid, IDF technology, and women in the IDF, have a combined 16 images ‘pinned’ to them.

Compared to their aggressive Tweeting and Tumbling, the IDF’s Pinterest page seems a little directionless. (The U.S. Army has a board titled ‘Army Style and Fashion,’ showcasing uniforms throughout the years. Now that’s creative.) It just doesn’t feel like Pinterest, beloved mindless portal of shiny things, is the right medium for them. While Tumblr and Instagram pack a visual punch that the IDF has zealously embraced, the glossy, saccharine expectations of Pinterest don’t seem to work as well with their no-holds-barred social media strategy.

Israel Defense Forces [Pinterest]

The post Operation Social Media Swarm: Are You Following the IDF On Pinterest? appeared first on Jewcy.