Friday, June 29, 2012
Dressing With Faith, Not Heat, in Mind
When the mercury passes 90, most New Yorkers start to wilt. Many resort
to shorts and tank tops, even in the office. More than a few bankers and
lawyers reach for their seersuckers.
Yet amid all the casual summer wear, in some neighborhoods more than
others, Hasidic men wear dark three-piece suits crowned by black hats
made of rabbit fur, and Hasidic women outfit themselves in long-sleeved
blouses and nearly ankle-length skirts. To visibly cooler New Yorkers,
they can look painfully overdressed.
Some New Yorkers who are not Hasidic surely ask themselves: How on earth do they stay cool?
The answer is a mix of the spiritual and, yes, the creatively physical.
The Hasidim will tell you they have learned to live comfortably in all
seasons with their daily attire.
“I think I’m not as hot as other people because the sun is not on me,”
said Chany Friedman, who was shopping recently in Borough Park,
Brooklyn, with two of her five children in tow, wearing a sweater and
dense stockings in addition to other concealing clothing. “If I’m
covered, the sun is not on me. I’m happy that I’m not exposed to the
world.”
Using a Hebrew name for God, she added, “That’s what Ha-Shem wants from us.”
In the Hasidic world, the traditional fashion code and interpretations
of ancient Jewish law dictate modesty for a woman — a concept known as
tzniut — so even on sizzling days women conceal their necks, arms and
legs, and married women don wigs, head scarves or turbans to hide their
real hair. While Hasidic men do not feel the modesty obligation to the
same degree, they believe that it is a mark of humility and respect for
others to dress formally when encountering the world.
They also found some humor in the question about the Hasidic wardrobe.
“Does anybody ask a congressman why he walks into Congress with a suit
or a Wall Street executive why he goes to work in a suit?” asked Isaac
Abraham, a leader in the Satmar Hasidic community.
Hot and cold is all in the mind anyway, argued Shea Hecht, a Lubavitch
Hasid who heads the movement’s educational outreach arm. In his dark
suit and gray fedora — Lubavitch garb differs from that of other
Hasidim, though it is still conservative — he sometimes chuckles at
people in Bermuda shorts.
“Why are they spending so much money on only a half a pair of pants?” he said. (Cue rimshot.)
Still, Hasidim have found subtle ways to beat the heat.
In Borough Park, women snatch up neckline-hugging shells that allow them
to wear thin, long-sleeved and open-necked blouses from, say, Macy’s.
Hasidic men seek a frock coat made of lighter-weight, drip-dry
polyester, without a shape-holding canvas lining, and lightweight weaves
in the fringed, four-cornered, woolen poncho known as tzitzit, a daily
version of the prayer shawl that is worn over a white shirt. Also, men
will go jacketless when working or driving, though any substantial
stroll along a public sidewalk requires a suit jacket or frock coat,
known in Yiddish as a rekel or in its longer and fancier Sabbath version
as a bekishe.
Even the shtreimel, the tall, cylindrical, Russian sable hat that
Hasidic men wear on the Sabbath to dignify the day, has been modified in
recent years, with holes in the crown to provide a kind of ersatz
air-conditioning. Those innovations may not seem to offer that much
relief, but in Hasidic philosophy, it is more important to please God.
Beyond the law, the identifiable style of Hasidic clothing — even some
waggish Hasidim call it a uniform — serves many purposes. It honors the
way ancestors dressed in Europe starting in the 18th century, when the
Hasidic movement was founded by sages who sought more joyous fervor in
observance that could be expressed by the common folk. Many dress
patterns, like the round, fur hats and knee-length frock coats, imitated
the attire of the nobility. A style adopted by a movement’s grand rabbi
filtered down through ardent acolytes.
“The equation of burden doesn’t come into play, when that’s the
tradition you’re brought up in,” said Amram Weinstock, 65, a Satmar
Hasid who was shopping at G&B Clothing in Borough Park, a store with
racks of suits, in numbers to rival Brooks Brothers, although these
suits come only in shades of black, navy blue and gray. “We are happy to
live that tradition and feel uplifted by living that sort of life,” Mr.
Weinstock said. “This is how our parents went; this is how our
grandparents went.”
Dark, austere clothing also serves to identify Hasidim and separate them
from the rest of the world, which helps keep members inside the fold.
Even eyeglass frames tend to be distinctive: black and heavy, not
streamlined designer styles.
Another Hasid at G&B checking out the frock coats, which sell for
$149 in summer versions and $250 in heavier, winter styles, acknowledged
a down side to the customary dress.
“You shvitz!” the man said, using the Yiddish word for sweat. But his
“what’s the big deal?” expression seemed to shrug off the problem as a
piddling price to pay for a virtuous lifestyle.
Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at the City University of New
York who specializes in Orthodox Jewry, pointed out that Hasidim did not
spend idle time outdoors, at best going “from the shop to the yeshiva
to the study hall to the house.”
“They spend a lot of time indoors, and they’re not Amish or Luddites, so they have air-conditioning,” Dr. Heilman said.
Hasidim believe that casual time outdoors exposes them to the
temptations of the streets, not the least of which are skimpily dressed
New Yorkers, said Alexander Rapaport, a Hasid who runs the Masbia soup kitchens in Brooklyn and Queens.
Some Hasidim contended, as Mrs. Friedman did, that concealing clothing kept them cooler.
“Look at Bedouin,” said Nuchem Sanders, who owns a hat shop in Borough
Park where members of an Ecuadorean family block and stitch the
trademark Hasidic black hats. “They live in the desert and they have
layers of clothing. Why? It protects them from the heat.”
The tzitzit, the fringed ritual garment, adds another layer for men on a torrid day, so Jacob Roth, of Malchut Judaica,
one of the largest distributors of prayer shawls, is working on some
remedies. For the Sabbath, he has come up with a summertime wool version
that is half the weight — “light as an eagle” is its name in Yiddish.
It can be accompanied by an imitation silver collar band to replace the
heavy band of real silver that the most traditional insist upon.
For daily wear, he has secured a sleeveless undershirt with slits and
fringes at four corners; it is made of cotton and eliminates the need
for a separate T-shirt. The brand name is PerfTzit. It has taken off in
the wider Orthodox community, particularly among children, but the most
exacting Hasidim will not wear it because they insist on wearing tzitzit
over white shirts and also prefer wool to cotton. Mr. Roth is working
on finding a version that they can wear when parched.
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