>Rabbi Elyashiv: No Wigs From India <
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=62442 Rabbi Elyashiv: No Wigs From India
16:43 May 14, '04 / 23 Iyar 5764
Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, considered the top Halakhic [Jewish legal] authority in most religious Jewish circles, has added his name to those banning the use and benefit of all human hair wigs originating in India.
The decision is based on confirmed reports that human hair in India is often shaved off for the purpose of idol worship practices, and is afterwards sold to companies that manufacture wigs. Although there is no certainty that any specific Indian-made wig is made of hair used for idol-worship, the widespread practice there means that each individual wig involves at least a "possible" violation of the Torah ban on benefiting from idol worship, and may therefore not be used. Rabbi Elyashiv said that his ruling does not imply that wigs in general are appropriate as head-coverings, and that on this issue, each woman should follow her rabbis' instructions and her own family customs.
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http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=510740§ion=news
Fear of idolatry sparks wig ban in Israel
Fri 14 May, 2004 11:58
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An ultraorthodox Jewish sage has issued a ritual ban against natural hair wigs from India, saying they may have been made from tresses shorn from women during Hindu ceremonies, Israeli newspapers report.
Many Orthodox Jewish women, who adhere to rules of modesty by allowing only their husbands to see their natural hair, responded to the ruling by switching to synthetic wigs or hats, the Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz dailies reported on Friday.
The edict, issued by the spiritual leader of an ultraorthodox sect, said some hair in wigs sold in Israel may have come from women who took part in Hindu haircutting ceremonies, which was tantamount to idol worship.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/14/nyregion/14WIG.html?ex=1085112000&en=68e80906839bd7dd&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE May 14, 2004
In Israel, a Ban on Indian Wigs; In Brooklyn, a Rush to Comply
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
ynthetic wigs flew off the shelves yesterday at Yaffa's Quality Wigs in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn.
On the crowded streets of the neighborhood, an increasing number of Orthodox Jewish women were seen wearing cloth head coverings, having left their wigs at home. Sarah Klein, a neighborhood resident, said that until the confusion was cleared up, she would leave the house only if she wore a baglike snood.
For thousands of Orthodox women, one of the most fundamental practices of daily life — adhering to the code of modesty that prohibits a public display of their hair after marriage — was thrown into turmoil this week by a ruling from a distant authority. More than 5,700 miles away in Israel, several rabbis issued a ban on wigs made in India from human hair, which is used to make many of the wigs sold in Brooklyn. The rabbis said the hair may have been used in Hindu religious ceremonies, which like other pantheistic practices are considered idolatrous in Orthodox teaching.
As a result, many of the women felt obliged to put aside their costly wigs, flocking instead to stores that sold acceptable replacements.
"You have to hope whatever you have is good, otherwise you put a thousand dollars in the garbage," said a woman named Mindy, who declined to give her last name for fear of what her father-in-law would think.
The commotion, like so many others that take place every day in New York's myriad enclaves, remained beneath the larger city's radar, but it was of profound importance to residents of neighborhoods like Borough Park, where news of a rabbinical ruling can spread like flame. Prohibitions against idolatry are based on Judaism's founding monotheistic beliefs, and echo strongly in homes where even portrait photographs are banned as graven images.
"The way Orthodox people live their lives is very complex to begin with," said Chaya Lewis, an administrative assistant at a school in Crown Heights. "We do everything everybody else does, yet we have guidelines. If this is a problem, we're going to find a way."
The modesty regulations have given rise to a thriving Brooklyn trade in wigs, along streets like 13th Avenue in Borough Park. Wigs of human hair are particularly prized, and can cost several thousand dollars. They not only look better, some women say, but they also last longer.
One of the most respected Jewish authorities in the ultra-Orthodox world, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, issued the Indian hair ban from Israel on Wednesday, prompting some people in Israel to create lists of stores selling banned wigs and to burn Indian wigs in bonfires, according to Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper.
Rabbi Elyashiv's ruling was posted on at least one Israeli news Web site, and word quickly circulated in Brooklyn. But the worry was not universal. Many communities, like the large Satmar community in Williamsburg, were awaiting their own rabbis' rulings.
The issue had come up several years ago, said Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, a leading authority on Jewish law for the Orthodox Union in the United States, but was resolved without a ban. He said it appeared that practices in the Hindu temples where the hair of Indian women is cut might have changed, prompting the new ruling.
He said he would study the matter and consider his own ruling, but for now stood by Rabbi Elyashiv's interpretation. One of the difficulties, he said, was discerning just what the Hindu hair-cutters had in their minds when they made their offerings, because that had a bearing on whether their acts were idolatrous.
Many women, rather than risk wearing Indian hair or out of confusion born of rumor, simply abandoned their human hair wigs.
Not Celine Schonberger, 19. She learned about the problem when her husband came back from his synagogue on Tuesday and asked if her wig was Indian or European. "He said I was not allowed to wear Indian," Mrs. Schonberger said. So she checked with her wig maker. "It's 100 percent fine," she said. Her mother got an O.K. from her own rabbi. An aunt bought a snood. "She couldn't go out with her wig," Mrs. Schonberger said.
Others in the neighborhood said teachers at a local girls school were now appearing in snoods. Meanwhile, wig manufacturers are sitting on huge inventories of merchandise; private makers are not even returning calls, for fear they may end up violating the rules. Some wig makers have advertised in a local Yiddish paper that their wig hair is not Indian, residents said.
At Yaffa's, business was bustling at 5 p.m. yesterday. "They emptied the shelves already for synthetic," said one saleswoman.
When the Uptown Girl Snood Factory Outlet in Borough Park opened at 11 a.m., a line was already at the door, said Michelle Aaron, the manager. "Thank God, today's been great," she said, noting that it was the second anniversary of her father's death. "He sent me a blessing," she said.
Mrs. Klein, 48, was picking out a new snood. She said she wanted to hear more from the rabbis before going back to her wigs. "I will be back in a wig once I know what the rulings are," she said. Fortunately, she said, she did not have to go to Manhattan yesterday wearing the headgear.
"I would look funny," she said. "One of the goals of modesty is to blend. When you wear a snood on the subway, you never blend
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/427408.html A hair-raising fear of idols
By Tamar Rotem
David Ben Ezra, a Bnei Brak shopkeeper who sells wigs made of real hair, cannot handle all the telephone calls he is receiving from worried customers wanting to know where the hair comes from. Another wig-seller, A., said that her customers are demanding proof of the hair's origins, and are refusing to accept her word. The customers have been in a panic ever since rumors began flying that hair from India - which is where most of the hair used in natural wigs comes from - was originally used in an idol-worshiping rite.
As a result, ultra-Orthodox women - who, according to Jewish law, must cover their own hair once they are married - are suddenly switching to synthetic wigs, or even to hats or kerchiefs (which, though preferred by the religious Zionist camp, are usually shunned by the Haredim).
Teachers in the ultra-Orthodox Beit Ya'akov school system were even told that if they would be fired if they came to school wearing a wig.
After a month of tension, Rabbi Shalom Yosef Elyashiv (the leading rabbi of one of the two main branches of ultra-Orthodoxy) finally issued his ruling on Wednesday: Wigs made of human hair from India may not be worn. But that merely fueled the panic.
People began running around preparing lists of permitted and forbidden wig shops; others demanded that the sellers of wigs made from Indian hair be tried in a religious court. In Bnei Brak, some people even started collecting Indian wigs and throwing them to the bonfire.
The storm began four weeks ago, when someone told the rabbis that most natural wigs imported from Europe are actually made of Indian hair. Two years ago, rumors had begun circulating that this hair was bought from Indian priests who gathered it up after the women cut it during a Hindu religious ceremony. This would be a serious problem, since Jewish law forbids the use of objects employed in idol worship (which in Judaism means all polytheistic religions). Apparently many wig-sellers concealed the fact that their wigs, though made in Europe, used Indian hair.
Two different Haredi religious courts opened an investigation into these reports, even sending emissaries to India to make inquiries on the spot. In the meantime, the uncertainty caused the market for natural wigs - which can cost up to $1,000 - to grind to a halt. In its stead, demand for synthetic wigs - which cost only some NIS 200, but are considered much less attractive - soared.
The natural wig sellers hastened to try to prove their bona fides to the rabbis. Ben Ezra, for instance, met with members of one of the rabbinic courts and explained that the hair he uses comes from Ukraine. Baruch Klein of Brooklyn, whose chain of wig shops has a branch in Bnei Brak, published a huge advertisement in the Jewish Press detailing the various types of kosher wigs he sells.
Ben Ezra said Eastern European hair is considered the best quality; Indian hair is the next best and Far Eastern hair, mainly Chinese, is the least wanted.
Some experts on Haredi society argue that the current crisis is a reaction to the weakening of the social control once exerted by the rabbis in the wake of the Haredi world's rapid expansion. The question is whether, once the storm dies down, Haredi women will resume wearing wigs of bright blond hair that falls softly to their shoulders.
"It's too late to return us to the days of our mothers," said A., a Bnei Brak mother of seven