The Lilith Blog

October 2, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

What Will My Tombstone Say?

I have been thinking about my tombstone. Every year, during these days surrounding Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur I get a little nervous. The words in the machzor make it clear that between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur one’s fate for the following year is determined. It’s only the method that is yet to be decided. Today, I am healthy, but who knows about tomorrow? Be Prepared: it’s the Girl Guide in me. I’d also like to save Mr. Blasé the effort and anyway, his punctuation is terrible.

I could opt for the standard phrases: devoted mother, dedicated wife, cherished daughter, beloved mother, selfless sister (but I feel a tombstone is not a place for alliteration) blah blah. But this is not a time for accolades, and I just don’t like the fact that these benign phrases are all about me in relationship to others. These descriptions, albeit worthy – are not about me as a person, but rather acknowledge events in my life that offered me a mortgage, school fees and the same person to grow old with.

I have been working on a few options:

She had an edge. Too short and too obscure. What’s the point of being remembered for the edge when any recollections of my sarcasm would be out of context?

Her cynicism belied her sentimentality. True, but would anyone really believe it?

Multi-tasker extraordinaire. Isn’t every woman? Hardly anything unique.

She wanted to make a difference but was never sure she did. I’d like to be remembered for my altruistic streak even though it was never fully realised. I just don’t want to sound too self-righteous.

Kind to misfits and loyal to her friends. Pots of soup across Hendon and Golders Green attest to this.

Her instinct never let her down. This instinct led me to marry the wonderful Mr. Blasé, so that is surely worth a mention.

She tried her best. What happens when our best is just not enough?

Lots of people annoyed her. And why did I waste so much time trying to placate them?

The Holocaust walked in front of her. Challenged to name my primary identity: British, Jewish, woman – I always chose child of Holocaust survivors.

She was grateful when everyone she loved woke up in the morning. It’s true.

Modest, inside and out. Can there be a greater tribute for a Jewish woman?

It’s not really about the tombstone, it’s about the legacy. What will be worth remembering? How do we construct a memory that reflects a person’s life when that life is fractured, complex and filled with it’s own memories. I have thought about this a lot in recent years. Holocaust survivors are dying around me and there are no adequate words for their tombstones. Young mothers in our community are dying of breast cancer and their children are barely old enough to read the words engraved above their mother’s grave.

Naturally, during Yizkor on Yom Kippur, I will be thinking of the deceased who are close to me, but I know I will also be wondering if I will be here next year to mourn them.

–Modesty Blasé

Cross-posted to the Jerusalem Post blog.

The Lilith Blog

September 17, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

Language Au Pair

Q. How many Beis Yakov girls does it take to change a light bulb?

A. 100. One and 99 to say Tehillim.

Women scuttle to each other’s homes during the week to huddle and recite Tehillim (Psalms) in an attempt to ward off illness or death or entreat God’s kindness for a good shidduch or income. Women are the corrections of a community: when disasters strike, the rabbis often blame the women for gossiping or immodest dress. (Gossiping while dressed immodestly is a double whammy and even worse.) As if women don’t have enough to do, now they are responsible for the spiritual well being of a whole community and are instructed to say Tehillim as the remedy needed to avert further disaster. What was the Tehillim tipping point? How did these verses come to substitute serious learning and empowerment for women? Isn’t it strange that while women’s voices are accorded tremendous power to change the divinely ordained course of events, they have virtually no voice in the decision-making process of a religious community? Perhaps that is the real reason why communities start to go awry.

***

Overheard at the butcher the other day.

“I really want to organise a mother and baby morning that has a bit more substance to it. Some learning or something more interesting than just baby talk.’

‘That sounds great. I’d love to come. Did you have any ideas in mind?’

‘I was thinking about swapping recipes. I need a really good honey cake recipe.”

I have never made a honey cake. I don’t bake my own challah. My children don’t eat home-made cookies. And I have never served strawberries hand dipped in chocolate. And I am proud. The race to prove one’s domesticity is endemic in Golders Green and Hendon. Highly educated housewives who have abandoned their career aspirations are channelling those energies into producing festive treats that come to define their role within the family. I argue that we must support local businesses such as kosher bakeries if we want a sustainable community. I am also not convinced that it is cheaper to make one’s own honeycake. Aside from the costs of eggs, honey, flour, electricity and water to clean up, there is the cost of a woman’s time – a figure that many women don’t value and never bother to calculate. In the run-up to Rosh Hashanah, we are exhorted to use our time to prepare spiritually for a new year of challenges. How did a woman’s spiritual preparation get hijacked and transformed into baking the tastiest honey cake in town?

***

Ellul is a month of transition: young girls from the community leave their families and depart for ‘sem’ – be it Gateshead in northern England, Jerusalem or New York, while a new stream of Eastern European au pair fodder enter these families and can be found at the gates of every Jewish primary school as the new term begins. The experiences of these two groups of young women – roughly the same age – could not be any more different. Esti, Sara and Michal are leaving home with a credit card and a suitcase full of new clothes with sleeves just that bit longer than what they could get away with in London. Petra, Jana and Olga will arrive on a bus at Victoria station in London with a small amount of cash and a rucksack filled with workaday jeans and plastic slippers.

Esti and her classmates know that they will be indulged for a year in what parents regard a ‘reward’ for their daughter’s hard work during high school. Esti plans on meeting her friends in Emek Refaim, Jerusalem’s trendy café strip, where they will demand latte and cake in condescending tones. Their parents will text several times a day and phone regularly and there will be constant monitoring of their activities by a cabal of mothers who fly out for the weekend to visit their daughters. If they could install an international baby monitor in their daughters’ dorm room, they would be listening to it all day long from the comfort of their Hendon triple lounge.

In stark contrast, Petra and the new friends she has just met on the bus have no idea what is waiting for them as they cross the threshold of the religious Jewish family they have agreed to work for. Her parents can’t afford to visit, she will spend Christmas alone in her bedroom and it’s likely that she will work second or third jobs to supplement her au pair income. For many young girls the au pair experience is a wonderful time, but occasionally it is a disaster and the au pair finds herself in a dangerous position.

Every Jewish mother who sends their daughter to sem feels fairly confident that a relative, friend or yenta on the block will look after their daughter if she is in trouble. Every mother in Eastern Europe is also worried, but she is not so confident that there is a safe and supportive environment waiting for her in London.

It’s easy to dismiss the au pairs that we have come to rely on. I have often heard women refer to their au pair as a ‘peasant’ or they make a joke about her family’s role during the Holocaust – ‘I’ll bet her grandfather was raping my grandmother.’ These “jokes” are borne of deep suspicion and internalized trauma that deeply damage the relationship between the au pair and her family. Sometimes I think that hiring these au pairs is an unconscious form of revenge: by regarding the au pairs negatively, they are defending their own family’s honor.

Here’s an Ellul thought: instead of imagining that the au pair’s family were collaborators, perhaps they were actually righteous Gentiles.

Fortunately, there’s still enough time to ask for forgiveness before Yom Kippur.

–Modesty Blasé

Cross-posted to the The Jerusalem Post blog.

The Lilith Blog

September 2, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

Pink is the Word

Frum women dangle. Their car keys, usually attached to photos of their children and grandchildren, their house keys, iPod, supermarket card and gym locker tokens are all hanging off them. In one hand they are holding clunky wallets brimming with credit cards, dry cleaning receipts, parking tickets and cash. In the other, they are clutching onto an important database of sociological data currently held on the SIM card of their mobile phone. Find the phone and you will unlock all the important numbers a woman needs to know: shaytel macher, kosher butcher, mikvaot, rabbi, my cleaner and her sister in Poland.

However, one item sits on the other side of the electronic mehitzah – the Blackberry. This symbol of manly achievement eludes most frum women, for it symbolises corporate power and importance. It means you’ve got a well paying job.

However, this may all change now that the pink Blackberry has been launched in the UK. If a woman’s accoutrements are her calling card, then surely the pink Blackberry will become a lifestyle item for the religous woman allowing her to retain her modest femininity while telling the world that she too, is a very important person with a very busy schedule.

Pink used to be an innocent colour: Barbie dolls, bridesmaids dresses, icing on the birthday cake. Our pinky was for pretending to be posh while holding a cup of tea and we had no idea that a pinko was a communist sympathiser. How things have changed: now teenage girls around me are fully aware that the pink collar lapel is for breast cancer. Young mothers are dying around them, and many of these teenage girls are involved in charitable efforts to raise money for cancer research. They also know that lesbians have politicised the colour pink, and that the pink pound refers to the disposable income of gay people. So, who is the pink Blackberry really for – drag queens, soccer moms or lipstick lesbians?

Gay issues now have a prominent place on the social agenda. For example, Stonewall, a gay advocacy group recently put posters up all over the London underground railway, “Some people are gay. Get over it.” When my children saw this they giggled, and then were embarrassed when they realised that I had also seen it. I am being forced to discuss these issues with my children at a relatively young age, long before they have had a chance to understand their own sexuality, let alone begin to understand how Judaism views homosexuality. The media is a prominent vehicle for promoting a gay lifestyle: on YouTube, Lizzy the Lezzy, an English born Israeli is emerging as a gay icon. In her feature, Lizzy the Lezzie does Gay Israel, she poses the question, ‘Why is it good to be gay in Israel?’ An attractive woman replies, ‘Because there are so many gorgeous girls.’

Thousands of young girls are listening to Katy Perry’s popular track, ‘I kissed a girl.’ The lyrics are very provocative and disturbing:

I kissed a girl, and I liked it.
The taste of her cherry chapstick.
I kissed a girl, Just to try it.
I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it.
…

No, I don’t even know your name,
It doesn’t matter, you’re my experimental game,
Just human nature. it’s not what good girls do,
Not how they should behave.
…

I kissed a girl, and I liked it.
Us girls we are so magical,
Soft skin, red lips, so kissable,
Hard to resist, so touchable.
Too good to deny it…

Now I know why some parents only let their children listen to Uncle Moishy.

But I don’t live in a bubble and our frum teenagers know a lot more about homosexuality than we can even imagine. The conversation in the religious community tends to focus on male homosexuality, and is usually summed up in a couple of sentences: ‘Homosexuality is forbidden by the Torah. You can’t be religious and gay.’ The fiasco surrounding the Gay parade in Israel, or formal Jewish participation in Gay parades abroad distracts attention from the day to day, and often poignant struggle of religious Jews who realise that they are gay.

I want to know how parents are discussing the complexities of this situation with their daughters, particularly just before they go to ‘sem’ on their gap year after high school. 18 year old girls, away from home, are very vulnerable and research has shown a high incidence of eating disorders in the close confines and somewhat pressured world of the religious seminary. What about sexual experimentation in such an environment where access to boys is usually quite limited? The rules of ‘shomer negiah’ (the touching of the opposite sex which is forbidden before marriage) certainly don’t apply.

Being slightly pinko myself, I try not to judge people’s personal relationships and I don’t want my children to be homophobic, racist or sexist. If biology is destiny, then surely we are obligated to support a religious person who acknowledges their homosexuality and does not want to lead a double life that will inevitably end in tragedy for all those he or she duped. Nevertheless, a gay religious person is also destined to a life on the margins, whether that be within their own community or when they venture out into the general society that may not understand their religious convictions. Do we want our children to have conventional married lives merely because it removes the angst of not belonging?

So, until our daughters are married they may just have to settle for a pink Blackberry which advertises itself as “the phone that gives you everything you need – without sacrificing everything you want.” Yes, the pink Blackberry may just be the man that every single frum woman is waiting for.

–Modesty Blasé

Cross-posted to the Jerusalem Post blog.

The Lilith Blog

August 20, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

Smart is Out, Mediocre is In

“These clever girls,” a friend said to me the other day, “they’re taking it too far now. My son isn’t going to want such a clever one. It’s not going to be so easy for her to settle down, make a home…”

“My daughter is doing brilliantly at university,” said another. “But I don’t know what good it’s going to do. It wouldn’t hurt her to be a little less clever….at least in public.”

For the first time in Jewish history, mothers are encouraging their daughters to underachieve. They shouldn’t be too pretty, too smart or too competent for fear of scaring the boys away. It’s particularly nerve-wracking for Orthodox mothers who are concerned that their daughters are pricing themselves out of the marriage stakes with all their accomplishments. “With a PhD under her sheitel,” thinks the anxious mother to herself, “a man is going to worry that my daughter will never be happy changing nappies and making kugel.”

I have spotted a trend, and you are reading about it here first: smart is out, mediocre is in. Many religious women in their 40s who went to university and worked briefly in their profession relinquished their fledgling careers to raise their families. While some of them dabble in voluntary activity and others are underemployed in part-time jobs, most of them are frustrated and bored. They were given the world, but their passport to travel has expired.

Fearing that the same thing will happen to their daughters, they are not encouraging their daughters to pursue high-flying careers, rather, they are persuading them to think strategically about jobs that will allow them to combine a family and work that is interesting enough. To address this issue, one secondary school in North-West London has introduced beauty therapy training as an alternative to A levels (an academic high school diploma). One has to applaud initiatives for less academically able students, but have they no imagination? Is beauty therapy the best they can come up with? You can’t get more mediocre than that.

I have been struggling to understand this phenomenon, and have come to view this quest for mediocrity as another component of the “modesty continuum” that started with an obsession about hem lengths and collarbones. Much has been written about modest clothing and if you simply Google “modest clothing,” you’ll find a plethora of websites catering to Jews, Muslims, Plymouth Brethren, Latter Day Saints and other modest-conscious groups.

Young women on the modesty continuum understand the sartorial expectations of the religious community, even if they seek ways to subvert it. For example, the little black dress deserves a study of its own. When I was a child, black dresses were for fat old ladies. Now, they are the uniform of religious women. Young girls and teenagers are clad from top to toe in all shades of black during the week, on Shabbat and at weddings. Only the most naive would suggest that this rather drab clothing is a sign of self-effacing piety worthy of applause. Rather, the very knowing, slim-line silhouette of these attractive young women is alluring and these young women with their little black dress aspirations are very wittingly imitating the chic elegance of New York’s skinniest. On the modesty continuum, where contemporary rabbinic edicts are often based on a concept of ‘not imitating the surrounding non-Jewish culture,’ there should be public burnings of these little black dresses.

Mothers have recognised the difficulties in controlling their daughters’ dress code, hence the move to control their daughters’ expectations. It IS difficult to combine a career and motherhood, but striving for mediocrity is not a viable strategy. Subduing young women in the hope that potential husbands will find them more attractive is a damning indictment on religious men and cannot be the basis for a healthy partnership between the sexes in the modern Orthodox world.

The only solution in the short term for these clever women is exporting them to Mount Isa, a remote mining village in northern Australia where the mayor, John Molony, and the glut of bachelors will be there to welcome them. “If there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women,” he suggested to the Australian media, “and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa.” Asked to comment on how he defined beauty, the mayor explained, “There is such a thing as disposition, temperament, manners, general attractiveness, attitude and demeanour; all those things tend to make a person attractive.”

Yes, just the sort of qualities to be found on the modesty continuum.

–Modesty Blasé

Cross-posted to the Jerusalem Post blog.

The Lilith Blog

August 13, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

Jewish Spirituality

The news that Spirituality for Kids, intimately and unashamedly connected to the Madonna-made-it-famous-and-I-want-a-red-string-too-Kabbalah Centre, has wormed its way into several London state schools has made the rabbis quite antsy. Perhaps rightly so, as the celebrity cult status of the organisation is enough to make me wary.

However, I’d like to see a lot more small ‘s’ spirituality for small ‘k’ kids. All around me are parents focussed on providing for the material needs of their children including designer (modest) clothes, lavish (separate dancing) parties and fancy (glatt kosher) holidays while pointedly ignoring some of the more complex issues of spirituality and morality that should also be part of a religious lifestyle.

While spirituality is a highly personal experience that cannot be regulated by the number of times one should wash their hands, many young people would like their rabbis to show a form of spiritual leadership that focussed on the quest to understand life’s big questions rather than political manoeuvring and obsessive concern about the minutiae of ritual observance. If you speak to young teens who go ‘off the derech” (i.e. the in-vogue phrase for ceasing to be observant), you will often find that they are thoughtful young people who became disillusioned with a system of control that did not meet their spiritual needs.

Rabbis often describe women as more innately spiritual – some rabbis will patronisingly explain that this is why women don’t need to wear a kippa because they don’t need reminding of a higher authority. Some rabbis will say women don’t need to learn Talmud because their innate sensitivity and spirituality would not allow them to cope with the rigors of Talmudic argument. Does that mean being spiritual is a code word for being a bit stupid and not having a ‘gemora kop?’

On a recent visit to the UK, Mrs. Devorah Heller told her female audience to search for the spirituality in making challah. Women are often reminded how they can create a ‘Torah-true’ atmosphere by thinking holy thoughts as they wash the floor and cook the evening meal. Most women I know are too tired to be spiritual.

Devorah described how, on the day of a wedding, she visits the bride, taking along a prepared dough. As the bride performs the mitzvah of “hafrashat challah” (taking a piece of the challah dough and setting it aside) she prays for a list of people who may be ill or need to find their own groom. Then, a few hours later, a freshly baked challah is awaiting for the newly married couple in the Yichud room where they go to immediately after the chuppah.

Many brides may have preferred one of Devorah’s challahs to putting their faith in Wrapit, the online wedding gift service that closed down last week in the UK. Founded by a Jewish woman, Pepita Diamand, many of Wrapit’s 2000 clients were Jewish and featured in a recent article in the Jewish Chronicle. Hundreds of guests who bought gifts for friends and relatives getting married will have lost money (unless their credit card company reimburses them) and newlyweds across the country will be starting life without that matching dinner set or fluffy set of bath towels.

Mr. Blasé refused to set up a wedding list, and I am still regifting (see Seinfeld, The Label Maker) to unsuspecting friends. However, like my stance on many of life’s big questions, I am ambivalent about wedding lists. On the one hand, it makes sense to give the couple something they would like, but on the other hand, when an invitation arrives in the post with a note telling me where to purchase the gift, it does seem to reduce our relationship to yet another financial transaction, albeit under the barter system. The groom and bride will provide a meal with loud music and boring speeches, and in return I will pay for a babysitter and a gift of their choosing.

Lists are instructive in Jewish life. There are the lists of people you want to invite to your simcha, and then there is the longer lists of people you have to invite. There are the lists of shomer Shabbat families in the neighbourhood who are compiled into a booklet of small businesses and local professionals assumed to be reliable and trustworthy. There are the Rich Lists, published in national newspapers, and from which the Jewish newspapers make their own Jewish Rich list. This is often the preferred Friday night reading material. There are the bikkur cholim lists – a list of Jewish people in local hospitals who would welcome a visit from someone to relieve the boredom of their sick bed. At shul there are lists: those who donate money, those who complain, those who make things happen and those who are dead.

A woman’s lists are never done: not only does she carry around a list of kosher brands, indispensable phone numbers and school holiday dates in her head, women are expected to attend tehillim groups where a list of those who are ill, having fertility problems or looking for shidduchim are presented and women spend an hour or so reciting psalms with these names in mind. Women are matchmaking all the time
and they receives lists of attributes: from the boys, they want girls who are slim, pretty and slim; from the girls, they want boys who are tall, good learners and funny. Women have lists of places to be, food packages to deliver, kindnesses to mete out.

There is only one list a woman dare not make: the list of things she would like for herself.

–Modesty Blasé

Cross-posted to the Jerusalem Post blog.

The Lilith Blog

August 6, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

Jewish Women and Netball

Recent news that the Israeli netball team found glory in Ireland brought a warm glow to my face that I almost confused with the beginnings of a hot flush.

A couple of years ago, I heard about a friendly Jewish netball game in London (a common game in Great Britain and Commonwealth countries). As I started to explain that it had been many years since I last played and that I was not in the best shape, Jenny, the team organiser, gently interrupted me: “Don’t worry,” she said. “Everyone says the same thing. You’ll be fine.”

And so it happened, that after 25 years of self-imposed netball exile, I picked up a ball again. Although I felt the coach staring at me in disbelief as I struggled with the complicated and unseemly warm up exercises, I was feeling great. The bibs were distributed and I was assigned GA – goal attack. Apparently, new-comers are always given the less-favoured positions of GA or GS (goal shooter). After five minutes of play, I understood why. I was completely exhausted and ready to go home, willing to admit defeat and delusions of grandeur. But I persevered and made it to the end of the game, feeling very proud of myself and determined to return the following week.

And I did. I have returned nearly every week, and have been upgraded to Goal Defence, the same position I had as a teenager and that allows me to run across two thirds of the court.

Netball distinguishes itself from basketball by the rule that a player cannot run with the ball. In a fast paced game, the ball is barely in your hands before it has to be passed to the next person. People are running around the court in their assigned areas with speed and focus, following the ball in anticipation of its destination. No dribbling and no wimps here. However, there is one considerable difference between the delicacy of women’s netball and the sweat of men’s basketball. Women say sorry when they miss a catch, ill-time a throw or snuff a goal. It’s sorry, sorry, sorry. It’s as if they don’t even believe they’re entitled to be on the court.

Aside from the obvious physical benefits of running around for an hour, there are existential benefits that are harder to measure. As I play, I’ll often smile to myself because of a fleeting flashback to my teenage playing years. I’ll suddenly remember the embarrassing moments such as getting a period in the middle of a game or the euphoric memories of blocked goals and brilliant throws. It seems as if everyone is carrying the repercussions of their teenage years around the court.

When people ask me who I play with, I usually answer that it’s a bunch of 40-year-old overweight Jewish mothers. But the truth is, as usual, more complicated and I have come to see this group as a microcosm of the fractures that make-up the lives of contemporary Jewish women. Some are much older than 40, and some are their teenage daughters. Some are devoutly religious while for others, chicken soup is as Jewish as it gets. Some have scarves tightly bound around their hair and are wearing a skirt on top of their long tracksuit bottoms, while others are in skimpy shorts and singlet tops. Some are single professional women, others are working at home looking after their large brood. Many are struggling to juggle work and family commitments. Some are married, some are looking for marriage and a couple are happily settled in lesbian partnerships.

Some are avowed Zionists who visit Israel regularly, while others prefer Majorca. In the milli-seconds of friendly chit-chat between goals, our partners (or lack thereof), financial troubles, children and beauty anxieties are shared. This hour together is an opportunity to see each other as women, stripped of our Jewish allegiances that have so often served to separate and stereotype us. It is an hour that has spawned great friendships across these divides and if women in Israel can also use a game of netball to enable these sort of relationships, and also with Arab women in their neighbourhoods, then it’s certainly a sport worthy of some funding from private and public sources.

–Modesty Blasé

Cross-posted to the Jerusalem Post blog.

The Lilith Blog

July 24, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

Miss Sheitel 2008

News that two young Jewish women, Leah Green and Samantha Freedman are in the running for the Miss England title was apparently meant to make me feel proud. After all, Miss Green told the Jewish Chronicle, “I thought that maybe I could try to get the message out that it’s not a bad thing to be voluptuous and a size 12 [a medium in the U.S.],” while Miss Freedman does the tzedaka shtick, “All the contestants have to raise money for a particular charity.”

Their accidental Jewish birth hardly seems relevant. They are not being judged on answers to soul-searching questions about their Jewish identity and they are just too skinny. Neither have the zaftig [Yiddish for ‘plump’ or ‘juicy’] beauty we associate with a little too much lokshen [Yiddish for ‘noodles’] in Friday night’s
chicken soup. Are we so insecure that we need to prove that Jewish women can also aspire and achieve the socially acceptable paradigm of Western beauty?

Advocates of the hijab have come up with the perfect counterpoint. In May 2008, Denmarks Radio’s youth club, ‘Skum’ announced a competition entitled ‘Miss Headscarf 2008’. The idea was to present ‘cool Muslim women’ who ‘often make up a very fashion-conscious and style-confident part of the Danish street scene’.

While only the actual hijab was being judged, the rules suggested “it should not be too flashy, expensive, show class or race differences, or draw too much attention to the wearer.” Muslims and non-Muslims were allowed to enter and 18-year-old Huda Falah was chosen because of the bright blue colour of her headscarf..

Here’s my plan for ‘cool religious Jewish women’ – Miss Sheitel 2008. Send in a photo of yourself in your favourite sheitel [Yiddish for ‘wig’]. Whether it’s the
‘Jackie’ with cascading curls, ‘Sandee,’ with luscious locks, or ‘Randy’ with a hint of mystery, you could be in the running for this prestigious award.

There are rules: no hair from the undernourished please. As one sheitel seller explains, “nutrition affects the quality of hair. Therefore, we do not buy hair from
the poorest places in the world and we do not take advantage of people’s misfortune. Rather, we buy the hair at decent price, and use only virgin, healthy and strong hair…So the hair we provide is healthy, gorgeous, bouncy, silky-soft and full of life.”

Good thing the hair is full of life, because I don’t want any faces full of life, otherwise I can’t publish photos of the winners in the haredi newspapers where
photographs of women are not allowed, or when they cannot be completely eliminated, their faces are airbrushed out.

In Golders Green, women who use George may have the competitive edge. Gorgeous George – half man, half Greek God – he has the Jewish women swooning as he snips and shapes their sheitels. With his bag of tricks, he performs trichological miracles for women behind the safety of their oak panelled doors and expensive security systems. Anyone winning this competition would have to dedicate it to George.

Bushra Noah, a young Muslim wannabe hairdresser could learn a lesson or two from George. She recently brought a case of discrimination against Sarah Desrosiers, the owner of a trendy hair salon owner who did not offer Bushra a junior position. Sarah argued that when Bushra made it clear that she would not, for religions reasons, remove her headscarf at work, Sarah felt that this young Muslim woman would not fit in with the image of the salon. Bushra was angry, appealed to the English legal system and to the public’s horror, a judge actually ruled in Bushra’s favour and ordered Sarah to pay £4,000 for “hurt feelings.”

While Bushra might be feeling vindicated in the short- term, if she had any sense, she would learn a long- term lesson from George and others who service her sheitel-wearing cousins. Here is a perfect opportunity to become THE Muslim hairdresser for Muslim women who may want their hair trimmed in the privacy of their own homes. Combine this with door-to-door hijab selling (cash only) and Bushra could be on the way to running a real yiddisher business.

–Modesty Blasé

Cross-posted to The Jerusalem Post blog.

The Lilith Blog

July 14, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

The Playboy and the Pencil Case

It was our turn to host Charlie, the school rabbit for the weekend.

It died.

Seeking to comfort my distressed children, we went to WH Smith, a large stationery shop to buy some coloured pencils.

‘Imma, there’s Charlie,’ my little one shouted. ‘They’ve put him on the pencil case. Look, he’s on the folder as well.’ Here, in full view, next to Minnie Mouse was the eponymous Playboy symbol plastered over a range of children’s stationary. ‘Can I have the pencil case?’ my little one asked.
‘What about Winnie-the-Pooh? It’s so cute,’ I replied.
‘I want Charlie. ’
Could Hugh Hefner ever imagined that one day, little girls would aspire to own Playboy branded stationary, blissfully unaware of its associated connotations?

‘But darling, it’s not Charlie. It’s a different rabbit – what about Minnie?’

‘Minnie is an idiot. I want the one with the rabbit.’

‘But don’t you understand, DARLING, you’ve been conned by this whole pink glittery thing. Can’t you see that even your sweet young kodesh teachers, freshly minted from a year at sem, are walking around school carrying pink folders, furry pencil cases and packets of cute mini neon highlighters suggesting a permanent state of infantile sexuality. Playboy represents the exploitation of women’s bodies and promotes a sexualized view of women that frankly, I find quite offensive. Don’t you see that by putting this cute logo on everything, the company is seducing unwitting young children into supporting this adult brand. Parents who buy this stuff are just colluding with the sex industry.’

She’s looking at me strangely. ‘What?’

‘Nothing. Choose something else – the rabbit is naked – it’s not very tznius and your teachers won’t like it in the classroom.’
I always play the modesty card when I am stuck. I am pathetic.

A newspaper cites Louise Evans, the head of media relations for WH Smith. “Playboy is probably one of the most popular ranges we’ve ever sold. It outsells all the other big brands in stationery …We offer customers choice. We’re not here to act as a moral censor.”
Of course not, that’s my job – Moral Mother. If only I had the same courage as Reverend Tim Jones – a vicar who found his 15 minutes of fame in the national media when he initiated a petition objecting to the sale of these goods to his local store and moved all the Playboy products to an empty shelf. This could have been an excellent spot of interfaith collaboration, but a rabbi-t was nowhere to be found.
We eventually settled on Minnie Mouse. After all, when Minnie and Mickey debuted together in the film Plane Crazy, she did not agree to his request for a kiss in mid-flight. Further, when Mickey eventually forced Minnie into a kiss, she heroically parachuted out of the plane. Minnie definitely had the makings of a Beis Yakov icon. Shame her skirts were just not long enough.

–Modesty Blasé

Cross-posted to The Jerusalem Post blog.

The Lilith Blog

July 8, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

Much to Learn from Frum Women

Billed as the ‘largest kosher bakery in Europe,’ Mr. Baker is a great meeting spot, punkt in the heart of one of London’s main Jewish thoroughfares. Israeli taxi drivers, Polish builders, Slovakian au-pairs and Hendon housewives can all be found drinking coffee and eating fresh pastries in this huge bakery-cum-coffee shop.

In a country where trees are not adorned with notices and their tear-off telephone numbers, kosher shops are an important part of the information highway. Free notices about shiurim, items for sale and job vacancies within the community are common. Last Friday, I saw a 14 page booklet – The Gemach Database – on the information counter. An acronym for ‘Gemilut Hasidim’  (trans. acts of kindness), a Gemach is essentially an organisation that loans useful items for free. This Gemach Database has a comprehensive list of facilities including all the typical ones such baby equipment, bedding for extra guests, clothing, medical necessities and catering equipment. However, there are also the unusual ones including  ‘Humane pest control – animal friendly traps for catching mice, rats, squirrels, etc without harming them,’ ‘Bubble blowing machine for use at parties,’ and the ‘Cut Price Bris Service,’ (did they intend the pun?), while the most sensitive Gemach has to be the spare breast milk supplied by nursing mothers for premature babies.

Women in the religious community know how to organise themselves in ways that other communities can only dream of. I showed this Gemach database to a friend who is not connected to the religious community at all – she was very impressed and immediately labelled it as a ‘model of community empowerment, resource sharing and grass-roots social action.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘you’ve completely missed the point. This is just frum women doing what they do – it’s part of being frum and belonging to a community.’ While it may serve as a good example of the sociology of religion, it is more significantly, religion writ-large. These women keep the social engines well-oiled, organising the nitty-gritty of day to day life with total selflessness and modesty. ‘Social action’ is currently being touted as an important tool for strengthening Jewish identity – I’d say the wider community have a lot to learn from these women

–Modesty  Blasé

The Lilith Blog

June 30, 2008 by Modesty Blasé

What Is It with Religious Women and Sex and the City?

There was a text on my phone the other day: “Come and see Sex and the City and raise money for underprivileged kids at the same time.” Hundreds of religious women are flocking to see Sex in the City. ‘It’s a charity thing,’ said one. ‘It’s just a bit of fun,’ protested another. Seems to me that the money collected might be better spent on a bit of stomach stapling for these SATC doppelgangers from the London suburbs of Hendon and Hampstead Garden Suburb.

What is it with religious women and SATC? Carrie’s masochistic relationships with men (before Mr. Big decides to commit), Miranda’s accidental single
motherhood (before Steve decides to commit), Samantha’s ruthless pursuit of sex without love (before Smith decides to commit) are hardly the values of Orthodox women determined to pursue marriage and family. Even Charlotte, the WASP-turned-JEW, relies on all the negative stereotypes of contemporary Jewish life to stake her claim: married to the wealthy lawyer, reveling in materialism, and relentless complaining about nothing. Of course, she does all this in an apron making gefilte fish.

Carrie’s life is the antithesis of the religious woman, and yet it is funny how the lure of supporting a soup kitchen will get hundreds of them out in their heels to watch Carrie’s denouement. Are married religious women so bereft of imagination that they have to rely on SATC for entertainment? Are their husbands so boring? Similarly, it would be easy to think that religious single women have nothing in common with the untrammeled sexuality of Carrie and her friends. Au contraire. While the necklines are higher and the skirts are a little longer, single religious women are also looking for Mr. Big. Carrie and her friends might not be subject to a community of rabbis, but they are also surrounded by smug marrieds regarding them with suspicion, pity and ambivalence. Smug marrieds who should stick to texting each other and stop bothering me.

–Modesty Blasé

Cross-posted to The Jerusalem Post’s blogs