Hair, Headwear, and Orthodox Jewish Women

Kallah's Choice

AvAmy K. Milligan

Häftad, Engelska, 2016

607 kr

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Beskrivning

Hair, Headwear, and Orthodox Jewish Women comments on hair covering based on an ethnographic study of the lives of Orthodox Jewish women in a small non-metropolitan synagogue. It brings the often overlooked stories of these women to the forefront and probes questions as to how their location in a small community affects their behavioral choices, particularly regarding the folk practice of hair covering. A kallah, or bride, makes the decision as to whether or not she will cover her hair after marriage. In doing so, she externally announces her religious affiliation, in particular her commitment to maintaining an Orthodox Jewish home. Hair covering practices are also unique to women’s traditions and point out the importance of examining the women, especially because their cultural roles may be marginalized in studies as a result of their lack of a central role in worship. This study questions their contribution to Orthodoxy as well as their concept of Jewish identity and the ways in which they negotiate this identity with ritualized and traditional behavior, ultimately bringing into question the meaning of tradition in a modern world.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2016-05-24
Mått:151 x 229 x 12 mm
Vikt:263 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:166
Förlag:Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN:9781498505543

Utforska kategorier

Religion: allmänt inom Filosofi och religion
Genusvetenskap inom Samhälle och politik
Judendom inom Filosofi och religion

Mer om författaren

Amy K. Milligan teaches women and gender studies at Elizabethtown College. Her research concentrates on the overlap of gender and sexuality with religion.

Recensioner i media

Orthodox Judaism is generally considered patriarchal and male dominated, but this insightful study on the symbolic tradition of Jewish women covering their hair reveals that under certain circumstances, Jewish women have been able to co-opt tradition and thus empower themselves. Ethnographer Milligan focuses on a small, widely divergent Orthodox community (Degel Israel Congregation) in Lancaster, PA, and for comparison, a few unconventional Jewish women unaffiliated but with other communities. She provides a myriad of complex choices these women made on whether to cover their hair and, if they did, what they wore and how, when, and why they did it. She also discovered that from a psycho-religious perspective, head covering and hair covering are not synonymous; however, both may provide the means for self-identity. Milligan found that tradition and family history rather than Jewish law (halakah) were usually the basis for female head covering choices in what she describes as an Orthodox community of practice involving learning, observance, and experience. As the novel The Red Tent (1997), by Anita Diamant, depicted little-known Jewish women's roles in biblical times, so this intriguing, factual work provides many subtleties within Judaism as practiced by women in the contemporary US. A five-page glossary of mostly Hebrew and Yiddish terms is also helpful. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Innehållsförteckning

PrologueChapter 1: A Hairy Subject: Approaches to Hair and Hair CoveringChapter 2: Covering Jewish Women: The Congregational ContextChapter 3: Splitting Hairs: The Struggle for Community Definition in a Small Town Orthodox SynagogueChapter 4: Wearing Many Hats: The Hair Covering Practices of the Orthodox Jewish Women at Degel Israel SynagogueChapter 5: Letting Their Hair Down: Orthodox Women at Degel Israel Synagogue Who Choose Not to Cover Their HairChapter 6: Flipping Their Wigs for Judaism: Non-Orthodox Women Who Choose to Cover Their HeadsChapter 7: The Long and Short of It: A Psychoreligious Interpretation of Hair CoveringEpilogue