The Blue/Gray Scarf that unites

The Blue/Gray Head Scarf that unites

May 2009

Rabbi Claire

I thought that I was focusing on the teddy bear that would unite Israeli children as one. I thought that the Israeli children, either Jewish, Muslim, or Christian would be my teachers and show me that prejudice is taught. I thought that I would learn from the Israeli children that they learned how to love and hate through play. I thought that I was helping stem the tide of teaching prejudice by bringing over my loving teddy bears to Israel. I thought that the Israeli children would be focused on loving their new friends, the teddy bears and not have time to learn to hate. Little did I know that it was the blue head scarf that taught me an even larger lesson.

I had had a few moments to retrace my steps to the head scarf kiosk at Center One shopping mall underneath the Jerusalem Gate Hotel. Shira, Sarah, and I were seated at a lone table at the coffee shop at the Jerusalem Gate hotel, trying to eat an entire Israeli breakfast and not succeeding when I had enough of sitting. I figured that I would stroll over to the head scarf kiosk and see if there were any more beautiful head scarfs that I might want to buy for keepsakes. I was planning on using the scarf as a neck scarf, as many secular Israeli women were doing. I wasn't going to wind it around my head as many newly arrived Orthodox olim women were doing. I figured that I fit into the secular circles much more easily than I did the Orthodox women's circles, but I found out that I was mistaken. I realized that I didn't know which camp felt more at home for me. I was stuck between two worlds. Or was it more worlds than that?

We had just come from the Peace School, a school established 25 years ago by Adena Levine, a newly Olah from New York, a secular Jew, who believed that children of all faiths in Israel should learn to get along together from a very young age. It was going to be her contribution of intertwining herself into Israeli society.25 years later, with 120 children enrolled each year, facing severe budget cuts, I watched in amazement as we distributed the toys to the teachers and children. As the teachers and children fought for their new gifts of our toys.I couldn't tell who was a Jew and who was an Arab woman or child. I couldn't believe that their only toys were from us. I couldn't believe that I couldn't tell who was a Jew. You see, the Arab women had taken the head scarves and wrapped them around their heads like the Orthodox women had. The only way I could tell who was an Arab and who was a Jew was if the Arab woman chose to stand up and show me that each one was wearing pants that day.Although moderately religious Muslim women wrap their hair, they are each allowed to wear pants. Orthodox women can't. So I waited in anticipation to see if I could guess right. I also could not guess who was an Arab child and who was a Jewish child. The Jewish children learned to speak Arabic much more quickly than their Israei teachers I was told. The Israeli teachers had given up on the challenge to learn to speak Arabic. The Arabic teachers wanted to fit in and dress Jewish style and speak Hebrew. I listened for any signs of accents. I thought that I could guess from their vocal sounds that I might hear. I only guessed correctly half of the time. If these women and children could blend together into one society where I couldn't pick out one group from another, was this a promising sign of peace for the future of Israel? Could it become a sign?

I left Adena's Peace School and wondered to myself, "If I took out the blue/gray head scarf that I had purchased from that head scarf kiosk a year and a half back, and wrapped the scarf around my head Orthodox or Arab or secular style, would it be assumed that I was belonging to one of those groups? What did it really matter what group I was part of?

I found that it mattered greatly.

On my flight from Newark El Al, our plane could not depart because a Haredi found himself sitting next to a married woman. In the last minutes before our plane departed, the stewards had to scurry around to find the Haredi man another seat. He wouldn't talk to a stewardess and he told the stewards that it was worse for him to sit next to a married woman. How had he known this? The woman had her hair covered with a scarf.

I had been invited to spend Shabbat with my Litvish/Breslav Hasidic relatives. I knew from the last time that I had visited with them, that I would have to have my hair covered while I was there. What did the scarf do to my self perception? Did I begin to feel the role of the Orthodox woman that I was representing? How much of the Orthodox package was I internalizing? How could I maintain my sense of postdenominational Judaism and allow myself to try Orthodox on for style? As I was explaining to one of my cousin's Miriam's daughters that I was studying to be a Rabbi, I saw this growing look of confusion on her face.Since women Rabbis do not exist in her world, I was trying to cross into her world and meet her more than halfway, by covering my hair with this head scarf. I later found out that the scarf, as a religious head covering, was not used in their community. The scarf is used in the modern and moderate Orthodox community. I felt that by trying to meet her more than halfway, I was crossing a line that confused the boundaries too much. In Israel, her sense of boundaries worked. I was imposing American Jewish sensibilities on her Israeli Hasidic lifestyle. It was as if I was trying to convince secular Israelis that they are all Reform Jews. As I took a seat in Bears from Bergenfield's partner's Ed's car and we drove away after Shabbat, I slowly pulled off my blue/gray head scarf. I felt that I was returning to the real me. But I felt that part of me was left behind, still sitting at their Shabbat table in Bnai Berak, checking out the Hasidic scene..

As I pulled myself back to focusing on checking out the head scarf kiosk at Center One at the Jerusalem Gate, I realized that I had crossed many threshholds with this scarf idea But. I knew that I had one more chapter with the blue/gray scarf to consider. That was with my new friend Miriam, who had grown up Conservative and had embraced a moderate Orthodox lifestyle with her profound identifier, the blue/gray head scarf. She seemed totally at home in her scarf and didn't seem to mind when it slid and slipped around on her head in the heat and the wind. She didn't mind the heat and she didn't mind the wind. She minded keeping the scarf on her head. As her husband drove us all to Sederot that day to distribute the toys to anyone who could use some cheering up, I watched her out of the corner of my eye. I watched as she giggled and how comfortably she appreciated the opportunity to do this mitzvah, of driving to Sederot and on a larger scale, moving to Israel to live in Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef, a mixed multitude American and English speaking community. I wondered if the scarf had pushed her into wanting to move to Israel and wanting to do mitzvot? or was the scarf a result of her need to embrace more mitzvot, become more observant, move to Israel? Could I realistically pull a thread of this woman's life fabric and figure out which thread was the lead thread to be woven in with the next threads?

I fingered a loose thread as I gently wrapped the blue/gray scarf around my neck, twisiting it tightly so that it wouldn't become loose too quickly. All of these Jewish and Arab women's identities appeared to be tied on so tightly. Each woman with the head scarf or head covering seemed to know who they were and what each one's place was in Israel; the Arab teacher at the Peace school who wanted to fit into the Jewish school so badly,  Cousin Miriam and the other  Litvish/ Breslev Hasidic women relatives, and Miriam, a new Israeli living in an American/English speaking community. I didn't know how I fit into Israel's Jewish community, on the one hand, so for now I was wearing the scarf, secular style, on the other hand. I knew that I wasn't secular but I also knew that my "Masorti/traditional, postdenominational" Jewish community in Israel wasn't very visible yet. It probably would take many generations of twisting sensibilities to make people see that the blue scarf women were changing their shade to gray, an umknown area. Who knows? Maybe this trip would help me to create a new, twisted look of a scarf head covering to offer up yet another category of Jewish women for the future that might come to feel at home in Israel as well.