8 Responses

1. They dont need a law, they need a shrink!

2. “growing trend” — maybe you should cite some serious statistics to back that up

   To dress in clothes that goyim wear as part of their religious obligations is clearly a shailoh at best — when the “Reform rabbis” started wearing the “clerical collars” we all agreed that was prohibited – dressing up like a goy is even shailoh on Purim

3. They can’t outlaw it because it would adversely affect arabs.

   Rule # 1: We may persecute jews.

   Rule # 2 we may not persecute Arabs.

   Rule # 3: If rule # 1 conflicts rule # 2, rule #2 shall prevail.

   Not that I disagree with the need to get rid of this destructive burqa nonsense by insiri, just saying…

4. with all the respect to everyone reading this, I have commented before about the burka or the face covering according to jewish custom, i mentioned that it is not a goyish custom, but indeed an old jewish custom of dress, which was mainly practiced by all the sephardic women in the middle east until the last 80 years or so.

   it is very suprising that many frum jews (including sefardim) dont even know the history of the code of dress of the jewish people in the past, which leeds some to think that the ones that choose to be more machmeer and wear a face cover, following the goyim or the muslim practice.

   just to bring a few sources that middle eastern jewish women wore a burka or a face covering, look in the book “chuchma umusar” (חכמה ומוסר, דרך הצניעות פרק ב) by rabbi abraham antebi, cheif rabbi of aleppo syria in 1850, who explained in length that “the origional modest minhag of the benos yisrael according to chazal,is to wear a “redid” which is a face covering that covered the entire face, and that’s how it always was, that’s how sarah imenu dressed, she covered her face even at home, that avraham avinu did not even recognize her when he traveled to egypt, as we all know. and the rabbi bitterly complained about the newly coming women who started to take off the “redid” and keep the head covering only, which he clearly stated that is a serious פריצות in his generation, and that the rabbis should all get together and rebuke and teach the women to wear the redid and reestablish this beautiful modest way of dress.” ( look in the book in length, about three pages just about the topic of face covering!! )

   look also in (שו”ת פני יצחק אבואלעפייא חלק ו’ אבה”ע סי’ ו’) the cheif rabbi in damascus syria in 1880, who wrote clearly in a lengthly tshuva about the issur of wearing wigs, ” that the custom of the women that are seen in the streets of damascus, they’re all covered from head to toe, you cant even see their faces or their fingers, and they always walk in public with a redid covering their face, so the question of wearing a wig doesn’t even apply for our modest women.”

   those are just a few sources to prove to the readers here that the minhag of the face covering, call it a redid or a burka or whatever, has always been the jewish custom of benos israel throughout the generations, only until recently, with all the pritsus in the world, things have changed even amongst the religious jewish women.

   with all the respect to rabbi ovedia yosef and the mk, i’m sure they have seen few old pictures of jewish women from bagdad iraq or from yemen in the 1900′s, i have seen plenty of them, and you see clearly that all the women dressed in a style that everyone would call today “goyish or muslim dresscode” like they are saying now, so what is the problem? all our grandmothers and their mothers dressed that way, just because everyone else today have a immodest frum way of dressing, (with the most beautiful wigs out there that our frum women are wearing,) that means we cant change to be better or dress like our greatgrand mother dressed? just because the arabs dress that way and kept the minhag of modesty it does not mean we are not allowed to dress that way, it is not assur, and there are many halachic proofs to that as well.

   those women today that have this trend, are not trying to look or dress like goyim, they are trying to be noiheg like the origional minhag israel torah, that we have broke for the past hundred years which is unknown to all of us. what is so bad if they are trying to be more modest, its definitely much better than wearing a beautiful custom made blonde wig, which definitely not a jewish nor modest dress code.

5. #4 davidatshm – With all do respect, you have missed the point. Rav Ovadya, Shlita, never stated that it was against Halacha and you have to be very narrow minded if you think that he is not aware of the dress code that was an integral part of Levush Klal Yisrael for centuries (and for the Sefardim until recently).

   Non-the-less, the problem with these ladies (and their family) is very clear.

   1) By causing what until now is perceived as Arab garb to be acceptable in Jewish circles they are placing Jews at risk by allowing Arab terrorist to take advantage and come into our communities dressed in their own typical garb without raising suspicion and without being able to identify them. This is a REAL genuine concern! Anyone living in Israel can attest to that.

   2) Being that such dress code falls out of the norms in today’s society they are drawing attention to themselves, thus causing the exact opposite effect as its original intentions. This is not Tzinus, but rather Pritzus, and I believe it is the root of their actions. They are not trying to be znius, but rather thriving on the attention that they receive and that is NOT Yiddishkeit! Being that it is not Halachicly required it should be discouraged.

   Personally, I feel that we should be tearing off their burkas to teach them a lesson that they are in reality chozer znius. Of course, I have not spoken to any Rabbonim concerning this, but then again neither have they. 😉

6. We used to have a lot of customs that the goyim took from us, and consequently, we no longer do. I think the sefardi women dressed like that in the 1800s because they lived in the Arab countries, and they had to. I think it’s disgusting to dress like an Arab in any way. Maybe our men should start wearing a shmatta on their heads?

7. Davidatshhm – As with most of these type of issues the motivation and process is everything. If indeed these women are sincerely trying to increase their level of tsniut by returning to the ways of their great, great grandmothers with encouragement from their Rabbanim then that would be great. If on the other hand they are doing it out of imitation of the Goyim around them and without at least the OK of the Rabbanim then it is not correct. By the way, i havent noticed this “growing trend” and most Jews alive today have ancestors that lived in Europe for many, many centuries rather than in Moslem cultures. Lastly, just like it is not Tzniut to dress less modestly than the frum women around you it is not Tzniut to dress noticeably more modestly than the frum ladies around you (with certain well known minimums of course).

8. I appreciate the comments written by 5,6 & 7.
   to # 5, I would like to add, that i was well aware what rav ovadia shlita’s psak was, that it is not assur al pi halacha, and i said before that i’m sure he is well aware of the old modest dress code, what is suprising is that the rabbis are against it, either because they are not aware that this was our way of dress in the past, or just because they dont want to look as if we are copying the arabs. but if you look and read closely in the book mentioned in my previous comment, חכמה ומוסר דרך הצניעות פרק א he wrote clearly that this is the way how all our mothers dressed for thousands of years, and the new women that changed are causing pritsus. the sefardi women dressed like that not because they lived amongst arabs like # 6 thinks, this was our true custom that the arabs took from us! judiasm was born in the middle east, avraham avinu was from iraq then israel and egypt, we always have dwelled in the middle east, the shas and all tannaim and emoraim were all living in bavel which is iraq today, the muslim religion is only 1400 yrs old, we were way before them, they coppied our way of tznius,our way of dress. some early achron wrote in a sefer that hagar who was the mother of yishmael and the mother of all arabs, who was the made of sarah imenu copppied exactly how sarah imenu dressed at home. we did not take it from them, they took it from us. and that’s how it always been in the middle east for thousands of years until the new commers who changed the dress code because they wanted to follow the european and western style and way of dress which was very immodest, and only the jews who fell for this, but the arabs stayed and kept the origional dress code. there was many rabbis in the middle east in the past hundred years that wrote a lot in their books about how the generation is becoming less modest, following the goyish way of dress,but they were not successful to stop it, if the rabbis in the past century in the middle east were able to have a grip on the pritsus situation that was happening then, we would still see all the jewish middle eastern women in israel and else where all dressed up modestly, like the arabs do, and not just few women that starting a new trend, they would all of them walk around with burkas, but the problem is that we have lost this nice traddition, and anyone who wishes to be like that is being labeled as if not trying to be modest or looking to immatate the arabs, or trying to look different.
   I’m sure that many of these women that wear the burka are not doing it leshem shamayim for modesty reasons, but most of them are, and they are growing, there is an entire town of them somewhere in canada, called lev tahor, they are growing otherwise there wouldnt need to be a statement from shas’s mk.
   just because we dont like how they are dreesing it does not mean they are crazy or wacked, what if mashiach tells us that we all need to go back and dress like that then what?