Jewish Women of the Hijab and Burqa II March 10, 2008

“Muslim women are imitating Jews” — “M” of Beit Shemesh, follower of the new ultra-modest “sal” style

I was walking down 13th Avenue in Brooklyn’s Hasidic neighborhood of Boro Park a few weeks ago, and I saw a woman walking down the street decked out in a hijab and an abaya.

My first thought was that she was an observant Muslim woman — there is no shortage of hijabi women in Brooklyn — but her Hasidic female walking companion and her shopping bags made me realize she was Jewish. My realization of her Jewishness was followed soon by a sense of anxiety.

“Please tell me this woman is Persian, please let this woman be Persian”, I muttered under my breath as the woman approached. Many Iranian Jews in America continue to wear the clothing of their homeland, with some older Jewish women retaining the chadors they had worn in Iran. As she approached, I could tell by her accent — the woman was Hasidic and she was apparently a follower of the hijab and abaya-advocating movement of ultra-Orthodox women taking hold in Israel.

“They’re here,” I thought to myself. “They’re here in Boro Park.”

Friday’s Times Online featured a story about the Jewish women of the veil, and profiled “Sarah” and “M”, two of now 100 women in Beit Shemesh who have begun to go about fully veiled. “M” tells of how her first encounter with a woman in a hijab sal was at the Western Wall in Jerusalem:

“I saw a woman who looked like an Arab and I was scared. I got near her, to try to determine why she was there, and saw that she was praying in Hebrew. I began to talk to her and became curious and then attended her classes,” she said.

The woman M met that day was a religious instructor in Beit Shemesh, and the founder of the sal style. “We have been criticised by so many in the community who see what we are doing as the opposite of Jewish law. Many women have stopped wearing the sal because of pressure from their husbands or rabbis,” said M, who adds that her family persuaded her to stop wearing the garment.

“Muslim women are imitating Jews to try to gain God’s favour with modesty. The truth is that the women of Israel are lessening in God’s eyes because the Arabs are more modest in dress. If the Jews want to conquer the Arabs in this land they must enhance their modesty,” added M, who covered her face for over a year, but currently wears just a loose cloak over her garments.

One hijab-wearing self-described “Conservative Jew” talks about how she has endured difficulties since taking on hijab and jilbab.

I can’t think that this is happening in a vacuum. One commenter on the charedi newswire Vos Iz Neias implied that the same person who had rocks thrown on 13th Avenue at an “immodest store” in January was behind the recent concert ban.

Are we really witnessing the beginning of the ultra-radicalization of Orthodox Judaism? And if we are, what effect will this have on already-fragmented American Jewry? How will this impact those of us who have never had such a phenomenon impact them directly? The concert ban, as was shown, was just a recycled one from the charedi community in Jerusalem — how many more things will be imported from Meah Shearim and Beit Shemesh?

Moshiach. Now.