Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

"There is a certain kind of Berkeley professor who I am losing my tolerance for...

You know (or maybe you don't): the kind who believes that your first duty is to sympathetically understand where people are coming from. Unless they're [X]. You have a duty to enter into the thought processes and sympathetically entertain the understanding of the world..."

Good grief; religion makes people do weird things!

I think the NYT is not quite using the right word: “modesty.” The way I understand code an Orthodox Jewish woman must shave her head and wear a wig after marriage so as not to appear attractive to other men. In the modern world, many women buy beautiful wigs and end up even more attractive than they were before, thus completely subverting the intent of the code. Perhaps I don’t understand the code and someone can set me straight.

I don't think India will go to the WTO over this. The tourism board in Goa would probably not be amused.

Why don't they just wear burkhas?

Religionists tend to be loony.

A. Zarkov wrote:

> I think the NYT is not quite using the right
> word: “modesty.” The way I understand code an
> Orthodox Jewish woman must shave her head and
> wear a wig after marriage so as not to appear
> attractive to other men. (snip)

I understand how shaving one's head would make one less attractive to other men, but then why wear the wig? Doesn't that make you more attractive to other men? Shouldn't you just wear a headscarf or a hat?

Max Weber wrote:

> "There is a certain kind of Berkeley professor
> who I am losing my tolerance for...

> You know (or maybe you don't): the kind who
> believes that your first duty is to
> sympathetically understand where people are
> coming from. Unless they're [X]. You have a
> duty to enter into the thought processes and
> sympathetically entertain the understanding of
> the world..."

[X] here equals "eager to discriminate against people of other religious backgrounds on the flimsiest of pretexts and in the ugliest of ways":

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.

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.

Some wig makers have advertised in a local
Yiddish paper that their wig hair is not
Indian, residents said.

"Perhaps I don’t understand the code and someone can set me straight"

As with any other religion, why do you imagine there has to be a functional reason at all? This is especially true of Judaism where adherence to law requires no reason or reward. Indeed, religious Jews follow the law, whether the particular law appears in black and white in the Torah, or owes its existence to rabbinical interpretation, simply because it is commanded by G-d.

And why should it invite mockery? The Jewish way of life has enabled Jews to survive for thousands of years in the Diaspora in the face of the most terrible persections. Even more, it has provided them with that certain particular something which has enabled Jews to make such a vital and magnificent contribution to every society in which they have lived.

I can guarantee you that this kind of snide attack would have not been made against any other minority group. It appears to be open season on the Jews at present, even by those who really should know a lot better, and this is not just worrying but also really very shocking.

"[X] here equals "eager to discriminate against people of other religious backgrounds on the flimsiest of pretexts and in the ugliest of ways":"

If anything is truly ugly, it's the statement above.

I'm just wondering... if you're a Jewish orthodox lass, and your planning on getting married, can have a wig made of your own hair before marraige, then wear it after marraige?

"[X] here equals "eager to discriminate against people of other religious backgrounds on the flimsiest of pretexts and in the ugliest of ways":"

Holly wrote:
> If anything is truly ugly, it's the statement
> above.

Way to address the content of my post, Holly.

Holly also wrote:

> I can guarantee you that this kind of snide
> attack would have not been made against any
> other minority group. It appears to be open
> season on the Jews at present, even by those
> who really should know a lot better, and this
> is not just worrying but also really very
> shocking.

As a Hindu and an Indian-American, I can guarantee that your statement is an out and out lie.

As for the "those who really should know a lot better" part of your statement, yes, given the ugly history (and present reality, for that matter) of racial and religious discrimination against Jews, they should know better. Advertisements in newspapers assuring buyers that wigs aren't from India? The blanket assumption that European wigs *are* acceptable ("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,'")? *Bonfires* of Indian-made wigs (instead of just selling them to someone else or throwing them away)? All of this is ugly and vile, period.

"Way to address the content of my post, Holly."

I simply haven't got the time to address in detail the ravings of every anti-Semitic bigot.

"As a Hindu and an Indian-American, I can guarantee that your statement is an out and out lie"

Behind the cloak of anti-Zionism, Jew-hatred is back in full flood: from Budapest to Paris, from London to California, in cartoons and newspaper articles, on the internet and on every street corner, the beast of anti-Semitism has returned. From Istanbul to Montreal, Jews are being attacked in the street and schools and synagogues are being destroyed. That snide comments about the Jewish religion are now being made openly is really not surprising. Surely, Jews are accepted, just so long as those Jews openly attack Israel and are secular. Nobody would have dreamed of attacking the many millions of Roman Catholics who regularly eat wafers and drink wine, believing it to be the body and blood of their god. When was the last time you saw Hindus attacked in print because of the *actual* and quite massive institutionalised racism of the caste system? India and Pakistan nearly set off World War III recently with their nuclear threats, but instead of attacking them, the Western press turned its undivided attentions towards a certain other nation who has not threatened a living soul with its nuclear deterrent.

And, much more importantly, my comment was directed not simply at the expression of contempt for Jews, but primarily at its source. That is where the concern and shock came from.

The great irony here is that no religion is less ethnocentric than Judaism. Unlike Moslems or Christians for example, Jews do not believe that there is only one route to G-d. Indeed, it is an article of faith that a righteous Christian or Moslem or Hindu is just as likely to be raised to life on the Day of Judgement as a righteous Jew.

"As for the "those who really should know a lot better" part of your statement, yes, given the ugly history (and present reality, for that matter) of racial and religious discrimination against Jews, they should know better."

This self-righteous indignation is typical of the kind of anti-Semitism that is currently circulating. We had no need to know better because we always did. On the other hand, those who would participate in genocide against Jews at the drop of a hat, quite obviously have learned nothing.

"All of this is ugly and vile, period."

Once more the absurd hyperbole.

The Rabbinical authorities were not guilty of racism in any manner whatsoever by ruling against the wearing of Indian wigs. Had they suggested that Jewish women should not wear Indian wigs because Indian women were somehow inferior then you would have had a point, but they did not. Do you really imagine that the wafer and wine used by Roman Catholic priests would be considered acceptable if they had been blessed by the Chief Rabbi?

Had the hair been used in similar religious ceremonies by Inuit or Baptists, Catholics or Moslems, and given wigs were being produced by those peoples, the ruling would have been exactly the same. The nation or religion is utterly immaterial to the ratio in this decision; the uses to which the hair has formerly been put is everything.

Moonies, Mormons and Rastafarians are loony. Pentacostals and Fundamentalists are loony. Muslims are loony. Hindus are loony. Taoists are loony. Animists and shamanists are loony. Catholics are loony. Adventists and Witnesses are loony. Christian Scientists are loony. Many Buddhists are loony. The Sikhs, Parsis, and Jains are loony. The Druze are loony. The Mandaeans are loony. The Yazidi are loony, but they do have a valid point. The Manichaeans, Marcionites, and Bogomils used to be loony.

Liberal religionists are less loony, and less religious too.

Yeah, some secularists and atheists are loony too, but it's not wired in as part of the definition.

At best, Buddhists aren't loony. But I'm obviously not a Buddhist, since I'm saying bad things about others.

So there!

At least I'm not Hitler any more.

Traditional jewish sources have a great deal to say about idolators. Basically, they are regarded as completely evil, and all manner of persecution against them is prescribed. The fact that Indian Hindus are regarded as idolators (which was already well-known but has been re-emphasized by WigGate) means that there are at least a billion people in the world today who are, as a matter of jewish religious law, completely evil. One does not have to be a fan of Hinduism, or of Catholic communion, or of any other religion or religious activity (Zizka has the right idea here: they all suck, though they don't all suck equally) to regard this as horrifying.

Holly wrote:
> I simply haven't got the time to address in
> detail the ravings of every anti-Semitic bigot.

Sure, but what about what *I* wrote?

Holly wrote before:
> I can guarantee you that this kind of snide
> attack would have not been made against any
> other minority group.

I answered:
> As a Hindu and an Indian-American, I can
> guarantee that your statement is an out and
> out lie.

Holly then pretended she said something else:
> When was the last time you saw Hindus
> attacked in print because of the *actual*
> and quite massive institutionalised racism
> of the caste system?

First of all, I get snide remarks all the time because of my religion. Most recently, at my mother's funeral, some jackass *who worked for the funeral home* interrupted during the funeral because we were about to *sprinkle* water on the carpet around my mother's body. Then he lied and said that we were not allowed to light a small camphor flame, which the pundit had already cleared with the mortuary. This was in the South Bay in California, not the sticks. And this was in 2002.

Second of all, I see attacks on the caste system all the time, most recently in The New Republic's article about lower caste religious conversion. Third, that statement is remarkably ironic. When did I last see Hindus attacked in print for the caste system? Just a few seconds ago, when I read what you wrote. Now if I were you, I would immediately decry this as anti-Hindu bigotry. I'm not you, and I don't view any attack on religiously motivated actions as being an attack on a religion.

And where is anti-Zionism coming into this from?
I have never said anything against Israel as a state. I am, however, opposed to the sort of religious bigotry on display here.

I wrote:
> As for the "those who really should know a
> lot better" part of your statement, yes,
> given the ugly history (and present reality,
> for that matter) of racial and religious
> discrimination against Jews, they should
> know better."

Holly wrote:
> This self-righteous indignation is typical
> of the kind of anti-Semitism that is currently
> circulating. We had no need to know better
> because we always did. On the other hand,
> those who would participate in genocide against
> Jews at the drop of a hat, quite obviously have
> learned nothing.

and then, she hilariously responded to my point
that this behavior is ugly and vile by saying:

> Once more the absurd hyperbole.

Wow, you really are completely blind to the
self-contradictions in your post, aren't you?

Holly wrote:
> The Rabbinical authorities were not guilty
> of racism in any manner whatsoever by ruling
> against the wearing of Indian wigs. Had they
> suggested that Jewish women should not wear
> Indian wigs because Indian women were somehow
> inferior then you would have had a point, but
> they did not.

Nor did I claim they did. However, *in the quotes* that I gave, the response to this on the part of some Orthodox Jewry has *not* been to say, "Wait a second. Okay, the wigs our women have been wearing may have been consecrated in religious ceremonies that we find objectionable in some way. Now that we are aware that this is a possibility, we need to be sure that the wigs we use, be they from India or from Europe, are not ritually unclean from Catholic, Orthodox Christian, or Hindu ceremonies, as all of those religions are guilty of idolatry -- they have graven images of Christ, or Krishna, or Ganesh, or whatever in their temples or churches or cathedrals. We need specific assurances from everyone, and until then, the women have to wear headscarves or hats. And we shouldn't necessarily assume that all Indian hair was cut in a Hindu temple, in the course of a religious ceremony."

Further, at least on the part of some of the Orthodox Jews involved, their response was not "Okay, these wigs are unusable by us, but let's not gratuitously insult anyone by openly burning them in bonfires. After all, these women gave a very personal part of themselves to make these wigs. Let's just throw them away or donate them or sell them to someone else."

Had this been the response, I would have had no problem. As you can tell from the quotes above, this was not the response.

Holly wrote:
> The nation or religion is utterly immaterial
> to the ratio[sic] in this decision.

Clearly not to the man I quoted in my first post on this matter. Nor to the wig sellers who advertised that they don't sell Indian wigs.

Now let's be absolutely clear (to everyone else reading this, not to Holly, who will assume that I'm innoculating myself against claims of anti-Semitism, apparently so no one will suspect that in reality I'm planning the wholesale slaughter of the Jewish people next Tuesday) about this. I have no problem with orthodox Jewish women shaving their hair and wearing wigs. I have no
illusions that there isn't a lot of ugliness in orthodox Hinduism (or Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.).

But the *specific* response on the part of some Orthodox Jewry to the revelation that some hair from India may or may not be ritually unclean ("One of the difficulties, he [Rabbi Yisroel Belsky] 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") is ugly. And vile.

Now the really interesting hair splitting would start if the wig makers were Moslem and they mixed the natural products of brahmin and untouchable men and women which they sold to the Jews with a few non-kosher additions.....

Frankly folk ICGAF and so should you.

How are halal wigs made?

Did anyone remember to sacrifice a virgin today?

Damn, I sure hope the sun comes up.

Had the hair been used in similar religious ceremonies by Inuit or Baptists, Catholics or Moslems, and given wigs were being produced by those peoples, the ruling would have been exactly the same.

Actually, not with regard to hair (wine is another matter).

The issue is not that the hair might have been used in some sort of ceremony by another religion, the issue is that it might have been so used by a polytheistic religion. Hinduism is explicitly polytheistic.

Halacha (Jewish law) draws a distinction.

It's why Jewish jewelers can sell crucifixes, Christianity is defined under normative Judaism as being monotheistic (there are differing views regarding the Trinity).

The wig (Sheidel) is a leniency allowed by some authorities, and there are some who don't allow the display of any hair.

As to the (now largely moribund) tradition of shaving the bride's head before the marriage, that came as a response to the medieval practice of "droit du seigneur", where the lord of the manner had the right to deflower new brides.

The idea of shaving the head was to make the woman repulsive to the lord so as to discourage this.

Matthew, droit de seigneur was a myth, though I imagine that occasionally individual lords tried to claim it anyway. Marx, IIRC, believed the myth. It's probably a secular/ Protestant/ Jewish anti-Catholic slander.

I have an article around somewhere by a WWII Japanese scholar claiming that Tibetan Buddhist monks during the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty claimed such a right in China. I have no idea whether it was apolitical and true, anti-Buddhist propaganda, or a justification for Japanese behavior in China.

By the way, the wig issue just hit my part of Brooklyn. The Williamsburg Hassidism ruled on the wigs and there were public wig-burnings in streets this weekend. (The Borough Park Hassidism are a different sect, so they don't necessarily follow the same rules.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/17/nyregion/17wig.html

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Nemo surdior est quam is qui non audiet - No man is more deaf than he who will not hear

An nescis, mi fili, quantilla sapientia mundus regatur? - Don't you know then, my son, how little wisdom rules the world?

Veni vidi vici - I came, I saw, I conquered. (Julius Caesar)

Quot homines, tot sententiae - As many men, so many opinions. / There are as many opinions as there are men/people

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