Bonfire of the hairpieces: global cost of religious ruling/Kosher hair?

An Israeli rabbi's ruling that human hair from India is non-kosher has not only rocked Orthodox Jewry worldwide but has also thrown a multimillion-pound industry into crisis. Paul Vallely reports
21 May 2004

<Snip> From The Independent

About two weeks ago, a middle-aged rabbi from Tottenham in north London boarded a plane for India with a most unusual mission. His destination was a Hindu temple in the Madras region which houses a massive image of the Vishnu, the blue-skinned, four-armed deity honoured as the preserver of the universe. The temple has 10,000 visitors a week, with an 11-year waiting list to enter its most revered Friday afternoon ceremony. But the act of homage most commonly performed by devotees is the cutting off of their hair. The temple houses 600 barbers who work in shifts round the clock to remove the hair of pilgrims who want to offer their beauty to the god in thanks, honour or worship.

Rabbi Ahron Dovid Dunner watched carefully as the barbers severed the long tresses of the women and men, and saw it fall in a trough, from which it is collected to be sold to foreign buyers. Through a translator, he interviewed barbers, donors and temple guides, making copious notes. Then he reported back. It was a move that has since plunged an international multimillion-pound industry into chaos.

The man who took Ahron Dunner's call was Rabbi Sholom Elyashiv, the leader of Orthodox Lithuanian Torah Jewry, in Israel. Rabbi Elyashiv is one of the most respected authorities in the ultra-Orthodox world. It was he who had rung Rabbi Dunner and asked if he would go to India to check out some disturbing reports.

Among highly Orthodox Jews, a code of modesty forbids women from displaying their hair in public once they are married. Rabbinical tradition has it that a woman's hair is her "crowning glory" and must be covered outside the home. Interpretations as to what this means vary: some merely wear hats in synagogue, others cover their hair in the company of others with a scarf called a tichel; some crop the hair short and the most extreme groups shave their heads. But many Orthodox women wear a wig known as a sheitel. Synthetic wigs cost about £200 but wigs made from top-quality human hair routinely cost £1,000 or more.

More:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=523317

And I'm not impugning Jewish tradition at all. I merely wonder why it is considered "oppression" for Muslim women to wear hijab, while the above practice is not questioned at all. Just a thought.

????

The right of the local aristocrat to deflower brides on their wedding nights, a reprehensible custom that you just know the GOP would like to reinstitute. Jewish women hacked off all their hair to make themselves too ugly to touch, then wore wigs.

....the answer was, "never thought of it that way". But I agree, muslims are perpetually castigated for oppressing women, while we revere our Judeo-Christian values here in the U.S.!!!

while for most jewish women it's more voluntary. you also don't see many jewish women with their hair covered up.

openly wearing wigs?
Isn't that what all this fuss is about?

and why many view muslim women covering up as oppression and usually don't see what is described in the article concerning judaism as oppression. it has more to do with many muslim nations forcing women to cover up and that's where the view of seeing muslim women covered up as being oppressive comes from. while for the jews it seems more voluntary and not forced by any state. for example israel does not force women to cover up but if a women is part of this orthodox jewish synagogue she probably covers up. but she is free to leave synagogue if she wants.

but my sister-in-law who just finished chemotherapy grew to despise her wig. She opted for a soft hat most of the time. She chose a synthetic wig due to cost, and said it was horribly hot and itchy to her sensitive scalp.

The sort of devotion to religious rites and prohibitions described in this article is beyond my understanding, but to each his or her own, I guess.

just in case.

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