Taliban women are in vogue among extremists. What are Taliban women? Women – they are Jewish, yes – who cover themselves in black entirely, including their heads. There is a sizeable movement of Taliban women in Israel, and some in America (and lots in Saudi Arabia, but they haven’t converted yet).
Apparently, women covering from head to toe is not new to Judaism. According to the Seforim Blog http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/06/taliban-women-and-more.html there is tradition in Judaism for women to cover themselves completely, even their faces, in some instances one or both eyes! Since in Shir Hashirim the one eye caused the author to declare “Thou has ravished my heart with one of thine eyes” both eyes were then covered up (nevermind that Shir Hashirim is NOT a love poem). Why not cover eyes, those sleazy things that cause men to sin? And I’m sure there was also the halachic advantage that if both eyes were shut off, there wasn’t the serious shayla of which eye to bestow with the honor of blindness.
On an Israeli forum, the Taliban movement is described as a lifestyle, not a dress. http://www.bhol.co.il/Article.aspx?id=41345 The Taliban families allegedly brought a mechitza in between the bride and groom at a wedding. They are coming up with other, less noticeable new expressions of extremism. Clearly, they are falling over themselves in their desire to be holy.
My thoughts of these women is not that they are driven by spirituality and a desire to connect with Judaism. From my experience and understanding, these women are driven by need to be in control, to feel empowered and to be innovative. They want to do all this within the realm of their narrow world of orthodoxy. By dressing outrageously different, they go against the grain, they stand up for themselves and their lifestyle, even while they are limiting themselves more. Like women on weight-loss diets, they too restrict themselves of their free will for the reward of feeling good about themselves. These restrictions give them the feelings that they are “better” than others, a black belt (and frock and shawl) in modesty. They feel like
Frieda Vizel
Frieda Vizel left the Hasidic community, the Modern Orthodox community and the Formerly Orthodox (OTD) community. She now lives in Pomona and is actively looking for a new community to leave. She deals with the perplexities of the communities she left by drawing cartoons about them, a habit that gets her into an excellent amount of trouble.4 Responses to “On Taliban Women”
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my mother is one of them she wears a burkah
Depressing but insightful. You get to the heart of the problem–so succinctly well expressed
Too stylish? who knows if soon enough this will mandated in schools etc…
Your analysis sounds good, however I think (and read somewhere) this evolves from the theory that no matter how modest, a woman is it is not enough from some .
Extremism breeds extremism and is self-destructive