Published: 7 February 2020
Last updated: 5 March 2024
WEARING A HEADBAND can signal many things, including marriage, modesty, athletics, or fashion. But recently, among a small but growing group of traditional but egalitarian Jewish women, headbands have become a unique way of expressing both their gender and their Judaism.
As more and more women take on the practice, a community has sprung up among what one wearer, Deborah Sacks Mintz, calls the #HeadbandNation. Lilli Shvartsmann, another headband-wearer I spoke with, describes this community as a “sisterhood,” swapping stories of how they took on the practice and recommending places to shop for headbands:
“I do feel connected to people that wear headbands, in that I know they’re thinking about the same things I think about, and trying to create a culture of head coverings that’s not just male head coverings,” she said. “We are taking the custom and making it our own.”
Jewish men have always customarily worn head coverings, today mostly in the form of kippot, or yarmulkes. Kippot serve two purposes: Theologically, they serve as a physical marker of obedience to God; historically, they have become markers of a person’s Judaism to the outside world.
This custom also comes from a talmudic story: “Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, would not walk four cubits with an uncovered head. He said: The Divine Presence is above my head.” (BT Kiddushin 31a) Some men wear kippot all day, while others wear them only for prayer, saying blessings, or Jewish learning.
FULL STORY Headband nation (Tablet)
Illustration: Tablet
