A Cultural History of Jewish Dress

Eric Silverman

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780857852106
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Fashion Design

A Cultural History of Jewish Dress is the first comprehensive account of how Jews have been distinguished by their appearance from Ancient Israel to the present. For centuries Jews have dressed in distinctive ways to communicate their devotion to God, their religious identity, and the proper earthly roles of men and women. This lively work explores the rich history of Jewish dress, examining how Jews and non-Jews alike debated and legislated Jewish attire in different places, as well as outlining the big debates on dress within the Jewish community today. Focusing on tensions over gender, ethnic identity and assimilation, each chapter discusses the meaning and symbolism of a specific era or type of Jewish dress. What were biblical and rabbinic fashions? Why was clothing so important to immigrant Jews in America? Why do Hassidic Jews wear black? When did yarmulkes become bar mitzvah souvenirs? The book also offers the first analysis of how young Jewish adults today announce on caps, shirts, and even undergarments their striving to transform Jewishness from a religious and historical heritage into an ethnic identity that is hip, racy, and irreverent. Fascinating and accessibly written, A Cultural History of Jewish Dress will appeal to anybody interested in the central role of clothing in defining Jewish identity.

– 1 –

(Un)Dressing the Israelites

And the Lord God made skin coats for the human and his wife, and He clothed them.

Genesis 3:21

The mythic events in Eden establish the importance of clothing. Originally, the first two humans walked “naked,” lacking both garments and “shame” (Genesis 2:25). In Hebrew, this nudity (‘arummim) foreshadows the “shrewd” (‘arum) serpent that suggested an infamous snack, resulting in humanity’s expulsion from Paradise. The consumption of the forbidden (literally, “lustful”) fruit opened human eyes to “good and evil” as well as to bare licentiousness. This awakening necessitated fig leaf loincloths, then heavenly tailored “cloaks of skins” (Genesis 3:7, 21). Theologians have long debated whether this divine outfit represented forgiveness or punishment (e.g., Oden 1987: 96–97). Actually, the question is misguided. Dress in this and other biblical tales, I maintain, resists any unitary or simple meaning.

This chapter surveys biblical clothing and adornments. I discuss specific items such as veils, hems, and shoes. But I am especially keen to show that biblical garb, both real and metaphoric, conveyed symbolic messages concerning power, gender, and identity.

Reading the Bible

What can the Hebrew Bible accurately tell us about Israelite garb—or any aspect of the ancient world? To traditionalists, the Torah records the words of God. Its facticity lies beyond question. But scholars approach the Torah as a complex tapestry of myth, legend, and law, largely irreducible to self-evident or singular messages. As Gruenwald writes in regard to the rabbinic exegetical tradition known as midrash, “the text is realized in being interpreted” (1993: 11–12).

So how, then, should we read the Hebrew Bible? As a transparent window through which to view ancient society? Surely not. Biblical stories and legal codes, Niditch shows, reflect the emerging outlook and self-identity of a small tribe of people dwelling at the crossroads of clashing global powers from the late Bronze Age through the sixth century b.c.e. (2008, chapter 1). And like all societies, whether in the Near East or New Guinea, the Israelites saw themselves as not just different from their neighbors, but as better than them. Biblical texts do not record history. Rather, they encode a worldview.

Modern scholars generally parse the Torah into distinct source documents composed in different historical eras (see Friedman 1987). Each literary stratum displays characteristic traits. Thus the creation myth in Genesis 1 is typically attributed to the Priestly source dating from around the time of the Babylonian exile (597/586–538 b.c.e.). This source, for example, habitually used the term Elohim to refer to God. But the drama in Eden is traced to a much earlier source, the Yahwist, dating to the tenth century b.c.e. As the narrative moves forward in time, in this sense, it actually moves backward.

The different oral or literary strands were eventually edited, occasionally annotated, and woven together during the Second Temple period, or perhaps earlier, during the exile. Of course, the Hebrew Bible contains far more than the Five Books of Moses. We must also consider the twenty-one books of the Prophets (Nevi’im) and the thirteen additional compositions called the Writings (Kethuvim). The canonization of these two compilations postdated that of the Torah, but they contain earlier texts. The linear progression of the Hebrew Bible we know so well today—the “story” if you will—belies a complex editorial and historical process that unfolded, almost like a palimpsest, over centuries.

In reading the Hebrew Bible, I am suggesting, interpretive nuance is everything. Rarely does the Hebrew convey an unambiguous meaning. When telling the story of the Creation, to cite a famous example, different translations evoke a world “unformed and void,” “astonishingly empty,” and “wild and waste.” Darkness spread over the “surface of the deep”—or perhaps the “face of Ocean.” And what issued forth from God just prior to the appearance of light: “wind,” “Divine Presence,” “breath,” or “rushing-spirit”? These differences, depending on what you are reading for, might very well make a difference.

All this suggests that one can read the Hebrew Bible in many ways and for many purposes. You can take the entire text as a unified whole, given by the redactors, and probe for narrative and thematic continuities—or explore gaps and contradictions. You can read the text as literature, focusing on plot, drama, and character—or situate discrete passages in their historical contexts. You can revel in ambiguity—or strive for precision. You can read the lines—or between them. I prefer a pluralistic method that, invoking the eminent anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973), approaches the text as an Israelite reading of Israelite experience, a story Israelites told themselves about themselves. And often, I will now show, this story was woven into clothing.

A Wardrobe of Uncertainty

Before I turn to the symbolism of Israelite attire, I need first say something about fabrics. Here, I focus mainly on vocabulary and assume, however mindful of the interpretive pitfalls, that oft-mentioned words—at least those we can easily understand—afford some glimpse of the ancient material world.

Several biblical passages refer to animal pelts or tanned hides. But the earliest Israelites, like most pastoral peoples, probably dressed in wool (zemer) sheared from dark goats and light sheep (e.g., Psalm 147:16; Song of Songs 1:5).1 After the Israelites established agricultural settlements, they could also dress in coarse, off-white linen (pishta, peshet). The wealthy enjoyed more sumptuous textiles such as byssus, or “sea silk,” spun from fibers secreted by mollusks. The Torah records two types of this fabric, both imports: Egyptian šeˉš and Levantine bûs. Elites dressed well. They also required, in one regal or fanciful instance, a “keeper of the wardrobe” (2 Kings 22:14).

Priests dressed in distinctive outfits made from a plain, perhaps white, linen called bad. This textile conveyed, as I discuss later, an aura of ritual purity. But purity did not imply impoverishment. Priestly linen, while not as rich as royal fabrics, still exceeded anything worn by commoners. We would expect nothing less in an ancient society that so highly valued rank and privilege.

Cotton (chuwr) arrived rather late in the Near East, long after the eras that pertain to most biblical tales. Cotton appears only in the book of Esther (1:6; 8:15). True silk (meshi) receives a single reference (Ezekiel 16:10). Based on linguistic evidence, then, most Israelites dressed in wool and linen. Commoners also likely dressed in shades of black and white. Any other hues required additional, costly processing.

Natural dyes adhere poorly to plant cellulose. The ancients therefore dyed wool, not linen (Milgrom 1983). Three colors predominated: worm-scarlet or crimson (shani towla), purple (argaman), and blue (tekhelet). The latter two dyes, laboriously manufactured by the Phoenicians and other coastal peoples, fetched enormous sums, and thus symbolized, like gold trim and precious stones, wealth and royalty (e.g., Jeremiah 10:9; Proverbs 31). The Israelites themselves extracted crimson from dried scale insects.2 Crimson also signified affluence. But most Israelites enjoyed no such luxury. They dressed in unadorned, practical garb befitting the everyday toil of premodern agriculture and husbandry.

But what types of garments did the Israelites wear? The answer is unclear. Scattered throughout the Hebrew Bible is a sizable catalog of clothing and fashion accessories. Ancient inscriptions, Egyptian temple paintings, and Babylonian stelae offer additional insights. All these sources, however, generally aimed to convey symbolic messages, if not outright propaganda. Nonetheless, let us assume some actual correspondence between the vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible and the garments hung in ancient wardrobes. What can we learn?

Actually, the metaphor of the wardrobe is entirely misleading. The ancients filled their world with far fewer things than do we moderns. In biblical Israel, as in premodern Europe, all clothing was precious, and thus offered as payment, collateral, and pledges (e.g., Amos 2:8; Proverbs 20:16). Only with the rise of the industrial revolution and mass production, not much earlier than a century ago, could the average person acquire an extensive closet.

That said, what did the Israelites wear? Unfortunately, most of the relevant Hebrew terms lack specificity. They appear, moreover, in a wide range of narrative contexts, often with considerable literary innuendo. Most words for clothing conjure multiple possibilities. For example, the Hebrew Bible often dresses Israelite men, and sometimes women, in a basic article variously understood as a girdle, apron, or loincloth (chagor). Sometimes this garment served as military armor (2 Samuel 18:11). It was fashioned from linen (Jeremiah 13:10), leather (2 Kings 1:8), and, in one prophetic fantasy, gold (Daniel 10:5). A fig leaf version covered Adam and Eve. In Isaiah 3:24, the chagor evoked opulence in contrast to a servile, rope-like belt (niqpah). Yet most biblical passages refer to the chagor as a mundane article.

Other garments evidence the same linguistic slipperiness. The word simlah refers to an outer cloak (e.g., Exodus 12:34), but also to generic clothing and, more chillingly, to a bed sheet that, when bloodied, attested to bridal virginity (Deuteronomy 22:17). Another cloak, the salmah, seemingly resembled the simlah and may differ only through a scribal error that reversed two Hebrew letters. Several other biblical words refer to nondescript clothing, such as the cognates lebush and malbush, as well as kesût.3 The latter term, too, specifies a wife’s garments (Exodus 21:10), warm garb (Job 24:7), and a blanket or nightshirt (Exodus 22:27). The word mad also refers to clothing in general (Leviticus 6:10) as well as a saddle blanket (Judges 5:10) and armor (1 Samuel 17:38, 39). Clearly, the variety of ancient clothing exceeded the available lexicon. It is a bit like asking someone today to plainly describe a shirt.

Another frequently mentioned outer garment is the ke˘tonet tunic or coat (e.g., Song of Songs 5:3). Both commoners and priests wore the ke˘tonet, the latter woven from the linen called bad I mentioned earlier. Women, too, dressed in the ke˘tonet as wel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 (Un)Dressing the Israelites
• 2 The Fashion of the Rabbis
• 3 Bitter Bonnets and Badges
• 4 Dressing for Enlightened Citizenship
• 5 Fashionably Modest or Modestly Unfashionable?
• 6 Black Hats and Unsuitable Suits
• 7 Straps, Fringes, Snails, and Shawls
• 8 I ♥ Yarmulke Day
• 9 Jewtilicious
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index