When I was in yeshiva, there was a guy there with darkish skin and a really big beard who used to always get stopped at the airport. Apparently, he bore a striking, but (as far as I know) purely incidental, resemblance to another guy halfway around the world who is even frummer than he is, but in a more... evil sort of way. This story is kind of the same, just a littler weirder. The nod to Islam was a bit more overt, and instead of an innocent yeshiva guy, it involved a follower of a convicted, violent child abuser, dubbed "Taliban mom" by the Israeli media.
I've been following the veil tale for a while now (there's even been a spotting in Brooklyn! Tip of the abaya to Y-Love), but I still can't get my head completely around it. Especially in the current world context. Iran has its sights set squarely on Israel, women there and in the U.S. are fighting for more freedom, and Israeli women chose to restrict themselves even more with Persia's finest?!
Elana Sztokman on Forward's "Sisterhood" blog sees this phenomenon as an extension of the existing rabbinically-imposed stringencies on women's dress, adding that it is difficult for one to "easily distinguish between extreme body cover that is 'normal' and that which is somehow extreme." She continues:
As if women – bombarded with radical messages of body cover supposedly in the name of God that claim the purity of the entire Jewish nation dependent on women’s invisibility – are somehow supposed to be able to know the difference between body cover that is “womanly” and that which is “crazy”. Given the predominance of this rhetoric in the Orthodox community, it was only a matter of time before women internalized the messages to the extreme. What is really infuriating is that none of the male “leaders” in Orthodoxy who rant and rave about women’s body cover now claim responsibility for the current extremism. It’s not their fault. Women have merely taken it “too far.” Right.The problem with Sztokman's argument is that in defending the rights of the oppressively appareled Orthodox, she also sacrifices their intelligence. Besides, the leader of this veiled rebellion, Bruria Keren, does not seem the model of hegemonic submission (just ask her kids!). Nor do her followers who endure well-placed disdain and outcry in the name of their twisted notion of tznius.
No, I think that the burqa bonanza represents a more sophisticated phenomenon that R/M Horowitz and the Women of the Wall know well, but would likely not recognize underneath all those layers: feminism.
In both of those cases, the women and their supporters are interested in the same, fundamentally reasonable thing (even if one's hashkafos don't agree with their specific arguments): finding a meaningful place for women in contemporary Jewish life. I believe the Burqa Brigade is motivated by the same drive. The only difference between the maharats and the muftis, between the rabbas and the burqas is the culture from which they emerged.
In the relatively open Modern Orthodox society, dissent is tolerated, and even civilly engaged. The goals of the dissenting women reflect both the religious and social ideals of their community: scholarship, personal achievement, and spiritual self-actualization. The flexibility of Modern Orthodoxy’s religious boundaries also means that dissenters can envision their goals at just the borders of the movement, stretching just enough while remaining, they hope, within the fold.
The female dissenters that Haredi Israel produces reflect equally upon that society's socio-religious makeup. There, where overt challenges to religious-political norms are not tolerated, dissent must be more subtle (even if the behavior is not). Where women have no voice, their protest must be without words. There, frumkeit is king (now queen), and individuality a nobody. In the monolith that is Haredi-brand Judaism, boundaries are binary, and there is no stretching; fighting at the margins only guarantees marginalization. Women who grasp at power in that world cannot stage their battle at the periphery, they must fight at its core.
The Haredi women who wear the burqa are not looking to be more eidel than your maidel; they're fighting the power. They keenly recognize that purloining power in their communities means reclaiming the reins of religiosity. So they’re really stickin’ it to the man by being frum in the only way he says they can’t. These women are reclaiming sexual repression and hegemony, holding halacha over their own heads as if to say "I'm the boss of me!" as much as "Grab it if you can!"
Think of it this way... if Lipa is the Haredi Kanye West, and Yidden is the Haredi Stayin' Alive, then donning the Burqa is the Haredi bra burning!
I think I get your point, but I have some follow-up questions:
ReplyDelete1. A feminist woman is, I think, one who feels free to choose to dress in whatever way pleases her, for whatever reason. It's possible that some haredi women who wear the burqa are *not* doing it as a protest, but because they believe it is the ultimate in pious behavior. Shouldn't they have that right? (And no, I'm not in favor, but I still have to ask the question.)
2. Are we living in some bizarro world in which scantily clad women are considered to be liberated because they expose their bodies, but women who cover are considered to be oppressed? Who makes these judgments -- women themselves, for themselves? The fashion industry? Advertisers who use the female body to sell products? Are women who follow the dictates of designers and media types (most of whom are men) more liberated than those who follow the rulings of (male) religious leaders?"
A few points in reply:
ReplyDelete1. I don't speak to the *right* to wear the burqa.
2. I agree that one can't assume to know the motivation behind each woman's choice, and maybe now that the "cat's in the bag," individual women are choosing to cover for their own reasons, but (a) the context in which the movement arose is still relevant in understanding the phenomenon; (b) even if the motivation is genuine piety, it is significant in that it represents push-back against a male rabbinate on a uniquely women's issue in a way that at once affirms the mandate of halacha and challenges the mandate of the male interpreters of it.
3. Either way, that is different than saying that these poor sheep just don't know better (i.e.- if only they'd listened better to the men who taught them, they would not be so led astray)
4. I wouldn't begin to say that anyone here is liberated; at least not based on simply having found a creative means of protest.
Brilliant. Another example of this kind of power grab are the rabbis who want to control the bigger rabbis by being even more "frum" than them. The kannaim understand that whereas in secular society "sex sells", in the charedi community "frum sells". They "get" the Gedolim to sign kol korehs against Lipa Shmeltzer.
ReplyDeleteIt won't be long before these powerful f-you women get a few rabbis intimidated enough to endorse them to seem "frummer than thou". And then it will catch on.
The fact that we will then have been influenced by the crazy muslims, will not be the first time. We have already seen how our idea of covering up child sexual abuse for fear of "chillul Hashem" was stolen from the Catholics (although we could teach them a thing or two about how to scare people out of being "moyser".