by Joseph Rafael Kaplan Weinger
Introduction
Hasidism is an affiliation within ultra-Orthodox Judaism that makes up a small percentage of American Jewry yet has captivated cultural interest for its elusive practices of isolation and ostensible rejection of modern secular culture.[1] Particularly in New York City, communities of religious Jews maintain historical traditions in the face of dynamic cultural change, living alongside secular communities while maintaining disparate cultural practices. The noticeable employment of dress and uniformity among Hasidic Jews raises questions that sociology and social theory can explore in order to identify how social life is reproduced, here materially. This ethnographic research analyzes the material culture of Hasidism as a window into its sociocultural praxes, tracing the use of dress in the formation of social identity. Drawing from the sociologies of culture, religion, and the body, and from philosophical interpretations of ontology, I study the production of cultural meaning among this particular religious group due to its anomalous existence and visual incongruity with secular culture. This paper seeks to analyze culture within social and structural boundaries, employing sociological theories of the body, performance, and interaction in approaching questions of religio-cultural practices. In order to complicate the often trivialized analysis of material culture, I intertwine an analysis of social meaning with that of the intimate practices of dressing. This research aims to legitimize dressing habits as sociologically relevant, accounting for the ways in which the presentation of self is entirely and constitutively social, cultural, and political.
I examine modesty—the common translation of the Hebrew term tzniut—sociologically, not theologically; for that reason, I interpret modesty as an ideology. I operationalize the analysis of ideology through by examining practices within Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Borough Park neighborhoods, home to some of the most vibrant ethnic enclaves of Hasidim in the United States. Using dress as a locus for ideological and symbolic representation, this research allows for a broader analysis of techniques of acculturation, accommodation, and isolation defining religious Jewish life in America. Here, dress is presupposed as semiotic and representative, as material that embodies ideologies central to the social body. The body and its material composure are sights for cultural tension and beliefs; concurrently, a material’s own materiality shapes and constructs experience and perception in distinct ways. In that sense, I do not consider this analysis postmodernist inasmuch as I value materiality in addition to the dimension of discursive production. This research hypothesizes a deep connection between material culture, the body, and religious values of modesty and discretion inherent to Orthodox Hasidic Jewish life. I conclude that the Hasidic body is highly managed and is central to the construction and maintenance of social boundaries.
Theories of the Body
The body’s social function has been contested within and among sociological, structural, and poststructural theories, as has the subject-object relationship under epistemology. Within the social sciences, dress has historically been abandoned as a site of theoretical analysis; Lipovetsky opines of dress: “an ontologically and socially inferior domain, it is unproblematic and undeserving of investigation; seen as a superficial issue, it discourages conceptual approaches.”[2] Its perfunctory classification as frivolous, feminine, and bourgeois has meant the continued devaluation of the way in which dress is constitutively sociocultural and political, regardless of the fact that all humans dress the body in varying degrees. In this regard, Miller articulates the problematic myopic “depth ontology”[3] of Western social theory that tends to grasp exteriority as a superficial surface and interiority as a true self, which he believes has led to a devaluation of dress as a site of meaning.
When theorists do address the body’s composure through material, most employ a theoretical hermeneutics of dress that abstracts the very corporeal and embodied nature of material culture by solely ascribing a Saussurean linguistic and communicative function, including semiotics.[4] Under this interpretation, dress is said to be a signifier, existing as a symbolic language—or system of signs—of identification that projects socioeconomic status, gender, sexuality, and culture more broadly. While symbolic and representative functions of bodily presentation cannot be ignored and offer useful frameworks for navigating the expressive function of dress, to exclusively classify and interpret material as symbolic is to disregard “the mundane and routine part it plays in reproducing social order.”[5] Dressing is a bodily experience, inextricable from the social boundaries of culturally relative bodily deportment. A framework of symbolic expression risks surrendering the body and its materiality as a key site of socio-cultural processes. I turn to the canon of social theory, which offers more useful interpretations of embodiment and social interaction, to understand how the body and its material composure are, indeed, central to sociality.
Goffman’s microsociology of everyday life demands an analysis wherein even the most ostensibly mundane and banal practices reveal the workings of social constructionism.[6] His theory of dramaturgical interaction—that identity is performed in different roles, and performed relative to social environment—entails de-naturalized, iterative practices that construct identity.[7] This theory rejects an innate essence believed to exist within each individual and instead perceives all social interaction as a series of acts, a process of poiesis that creates identity. Extending this view, dress, then, acts as one “sign-vehicle” or carrier of information that informs an interaction. The body is managed in social interactions, and Goffman would likely classify dress under a “personal front,” which he denotes as that which “[refers] to the other items of expressive equipment, the items that we most intimately identify with the performer himself [sic] and that we naturally expect will follow the performer wherever he [sic] goes.”[8] Part of the personal front, he writes, are practices of appearance—“stimuli which function at the time to tell us of the performer’s social statuses”—and manner— “stimuli which function at the time to warn us of the interaction role the performer will expect to play in the on-coming situation.” Dress, here, is a transitory article of appearance that represents a “temporary ritual state” and performs propriety.
Goffman’s theory of performativity is useful in understanding social codes of dressing and comporting. To perform incorrectly, i.e. to improperly dress and wrongly conduct the body relative to temporality and spatiality, can foment stigma and ostracization (see Goffman 1963). Entwistle cogently identifies this paradigm: “In Goffman’s work, the body is the property of both the individual and the social world: it is the vehicle of identity, but this identity has to be ‘managed’ in terms of the definitions of the social situation, which impose particular ways of being on the body.”[9] The social codes of appearance impose strictures that are enforced in the front performance. The body, under this structural approach, is constituted by social structures but also manipulated as a site of personal identity. Douglas shares a similar interpretation of the nexus of self and society by conceptualizing two bodies: “The social body constrains the way the physical body is perceived. The physical experience of the body, always modified by the social categories through which it is known, sustains a particular view of society.…[T]he body itself is a highly restricted medium of expression.”[10] The body is mediated through social interaction; it is sustained and reinforced through its position within a society.
The theories above place the body under social strictures but do not prove entirely explanatory when tracing agency. Bourdieu’s social theory, particularly his development of habitus, intervenes in the dialectic between self and society. Habitus, an individual’s embodied set of ingrained dispositions and abilities, and of social structures, is historically contingent and socially determinant; it is simultaneously imposed and practiced, demonstrating both structure and agency. Bourdieu writes:
The structures constitutive of a particular type of environment (e.g. the material conditions of existence characteristic of a class condition) produce habitus, systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles of the generation and structuring of practices and representations which can be objectively “regulated” and “regular” without in any way being the product of obedience to rules, objectively adapted to their goals without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary to attain them and, being all this, collectively orchestrated without being the product of the orchestrating action of a conductor.[11]
This passage explains how the body is implicated under social forces, not solely as an object but not fully as a subject, either. The “structuring structures,” Bourdieu argues, are made regular without being consciously obeyed. Bourdieu’s notion of “bodily hexis,”[12] the set of composures, practices, and orientations that partially compose one’s habitus, similarly vacillates within the dialectic of structure and agency. Informal regulations around dressing and comporting certainly would fall under habitus, which is ideologically interpellating and reproduced through praxis. Bourdieu maintains that habitus is embodied; it is neither fully embraced through agency nor passively ascribed by social forces, but rather exists liminally between objectivist determinism and subjectivist voluntarism.[13] One’s personal position, at once accepted as natural, is, in fact, socially constructed.
While sociological structuralist interpretations offer this ambivalence, poststructuralist critique further interrogates the body as a site ascribed with social and cultural beliefs. In his analysis of incarceration and power, Foucault introduces docility as the modality through which discipline operates.[14] The body is subject to power, and practices that manage the body—adorning, ornamenting, dressing, modifying, shaping—create both intimate and discursive forces of power: “A body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved,” Foucault writes.[15] Body work, or the negotiation of forms of identity through disciplinary practices, engages the body in societal practices by allowing it to succumb to, or attempt to negate, imposing standards and normalizing forces. For Foucault, individuals become agents of their own subjugation and engage in body work to create and perpetuate identity. Dress certainly can fall under the disciplinary actions enacted both on and by the body in Foucault’s framework; docility, then, includes the way personal identity is constructed socially. Entwistle applies Foucault’s theory of the body to dressing: “Foucault’s notion of discourse can enable the analysis of fashion as a discursive domain that sets significant parameters around the body and its presentation. Fashion…has been linked to the operations of power, initially marking out class divisions, but more recently playing a crucial role in policing the boundaries of sexual difference.”[16] The body is subjected to disciplinary forces and power is enforced regularly and dispersedly through self-discipline. Dress discursively produces the body as meaningful and productive on the one hand, or transgressive and immoral on the other.
The poststructuralist interpretation of the body, while highly useful, may succumb to a limited positioning of perception and agency. The docile body appears agentless and incapable of phenomenologically interacting and perceiving. Foucault regards discipline as constraining and productive, yet he is also contradictory in his placement of the body: “[Foucault’s] bio-politics would appear to construct the body as a concrete, material entity, manipulated by institutions and practices; on the other hand, his focus on discourse seems to produce a notion of the body that has no materiality outside the representation.”[17] She critiques Foucault’s “extreme anti-humanism”[18] and disembodied interpretation, along with his failure to acknowledge gender in Discipline and Punish. In response, Entwistle ideates that dress is a “situated bodily practice,” meaning it is at once symbolically representative, sociologically performed, discursively produced, materially interactive, and, most significantly, phenomenologically embodied.[19] To thoroughly address the body, along with Foucault’s notion of discursive production, it becomes useful to apply phenomenology to account for materiality, embodiment, and agency.
Phenomenology and the Body
I draw on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology to situate the self, and identity, within the body and to more directly describe experience as it is lived. Phenomenology entails a critical recognition of how we, as human beings, come to know the world around us through our subjective perceptions. Merleau-Ponty philosophizes knowledge through perception within the world spatially and temporally.[20] The body and its presentation are not simply representational; in the context of phenomenology, the body experiences the world and is the medium through which identity is perceived. As Salomon explains, “Phenomenology…involves a particular way of describing what is, a way of mapping the terrain of what appears. In phenomenological inquiry, when we expose the dualisms of self and other, of subject and object, to the light of experience, the separation between them begins to dissolve.”[21] This process is entirely subjective and useful for that reason. Merleau-Ponty emphasizes the body’s movement through and awareness of space in perceiving objects and environment under the term “body schema.”[22]
The dimension of space is crucial to phenomenology; Merleau-Ponty argues that the body’s spatiality determines perception.[23] Where the body is in relation to objects, how it moves about space and the way in which it is positioned in the world maintains its subjectivity: “For us the body is much more than an instrument or a means; it is our expression in the world, the visible form of our intentions,” he writes.[24] Therefore, the body is acted upon, and itself acts, depending on space and time. Entwistle applies dress to this framework, adding that “our bodies…are indivisible from a sense of self” and are managed, through dress, to meet demands of space.[25] For example, the naked body is generally improper in public. Utilizing phenomenology counters a Foucauldian post-structuralist anti-humanism by featuring the body. Relative to the analysis herein, the employment of this particular philosophical inquiry allows for an analysis of embodied performance of religious boundaries as they are lived and felt among those who dress under Hasidic strictures.
Material Culture
I have herein established the body as a site of identity and perception but have yet to interpret the interaction between human and material culture, self and object. Characteristic of material culture are “objects through which a culture constitutes itself, which is to say, too, culture as it is objectified in material forms.”[26] Understanding dress as material culture considers the materiality and physicality of an object alongside value, use, symbol, and representation. Dress is material culture insomuch as it reflects human culture through its creation, modification, and function. When interpreting dress on the body, the “dimension of wear”—phenomenologically speaking—must be accounted for. Miller writes that clothing serves “not simply as the cover of the individual but as the mediation between the individual and that which lies outside them.”[27] This dimension of wear ascribes a certain agency to materiality itself[28] A garment’s concrete properties may be socially constructed, but that garment concurrently interacts with and confines the social arrangements through which it is used. Arendt makes clear this relational paradigm between subject and object:
the things of the world have the function of stabilizing human life, and their objectivity
lies in the fact that…men, their ever-changing nature notwithstanding, can retrieve their
sameness, that is, their identity, by being related to the same chair and the same table.[29] Identity is constituted by the interaction between self and thing, Arendt believes. Under this logic, one’s clothing—and particularly the relatively homogenous dress of the Hasidim, as later explored—becomes the reference point for stability and identification.
Similar to the “depth ontology”[30] Miller articulates around the failure of social theory to engage with dress, the field of Jewish studies has historically devalued material culture in arguing that Jewish culture is found in ideas, text, and language, rather than materiality. Recent developments, though, have pivoted to embrace Jewish material culture as a great inheritor of meaning.[31] Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Shandler argue: “We do not see Jewish culture, past or present, as materially impoverished, nor do we see this material culture as adventitious (or its study inimical) in relation to Jewish words or thoughts.”[32] They continue: “material practices are imbricated in Jewish religiosity and…scrutiny of these practices enhances one’s understanding of Judaism, even in its striving for the transcendent.” While this transcendence, particularly encouraged by the Jewish philosophical tradition of Hasidism, ostensibly forbids deleterious forms of materialism[33]—that is, the attachment to and fetishization of material goods—material has always been central to religious praxis. Specifically, Jewish spiritual attainment is often inextricable from ritual garments, demonstrated commensurably by the biblical choshen (priestly breastplate) and tzitzit (fringes), among others. Auslander concurs that materiality is inherently Jewish, “I argue that the nature of Judaism itself, the centuries lived as often highly mobile diasporic minorities, the realities of discrimination and marginalization, and the Shoah, have created a specifically Jewish relationship to material culture.”[34] It is with respect to this profoundly Jewish relationship to material culture that I analyze Hasidic dressing practices, not to hyperbolize “otherness” as it is instantiated through corporeal presentation, but to identify how the Hasidic social body is made meaningful particularly through consumption and materiality. Following Brown’s movement towards a methodological fetishism, I am asking here questions “not about things themselves but about the subject-object relation in particular temporal and spatial contexts.”[35]
A Brief History of Brooklyn’s Hasidim
While each modern Hasidic sect has followed a distinct historical path, all are united by their origins in eighteenth-century Eastern Europe under the leadership of Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov.[36] Hasidism sprung out of an exigent need to counter both secularization and traditional rabbincal Judaism through spiritual mysticism. The Baal Shem Tov, in inadvertently initiating a revitalization movement, preached devekut, an attachment to God that could be located within each Jew, not only through prayer and study but through “practical mysticism to be mastered and performed by each and every individual.”[37] He encouraged devotion through humility, joy, and enthusiasm. In his philosophical inquiry into Hasidic belief, Buber explains the movement across four categories—hitlahavut (ecstasy), avodah (service), kavana (intention), and shiflut (humility)—all of which underscore the piety of Hasidic worshippers under the auspices of their charismatic rebbes (rabbinical head figures).[38] Hasidic tradition also deeply integrates Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, from the 16th century leader Isaac Luria (the Arizal).[39] While the Hasidim are now commonly referred to as ultra-Orthodox, as a people committed to fundamentalist adherence to Jewish law, the movement originally sought to invigorate the whole of Judaism with accessible spiritual involvement in an effort to counter apostasy.
The Baal Shem Tov’s successors, with roots across Eastern Europe including Lithuania and Hungary, effectively branched out to form varied praxes of religious observance. Shneur Zalman is identified as the founder of Lubavitcher Hasidism, with Menachem Mendel Schneerson serving as the most profound and influential Lubavitcher rebbe in history; Yoel Teitelbaum established the Satmar dynasty and Shlomo Halberstam established the Bobov.[40] While the first Hasidic Jews are known to have emigrated to America—the New World—in the late nineteenth century, masses of Hasidim did not settle in New York until after the devastation of the Holocaust, with the Lubavitcher eventually settling in Crown Heights, the Satmar in Williamsburg, and the Bobov and Skver in Borough Park, among many other sects.[41] These communities quickly established large infrastructures for religious life through separate education, healthcare, legislative, and judicial systems. To this day, Hasidic communities largely maintain centuries-old tradition established in Europe. Conjugal arrangements and relations, family structures, educational priorities, and economic systems among the Hasidim generally operate in contradistinction to Western liberalism, though Poll argues that Hasidism has adjusted to embrace capitalist industrialism.[42] Notwithstanding isolationist demands, while Hasidism’s many distinctions buttress socio-cultural boundaries, as an ostensible total institution Hasidism is not impervious and has undeniably made some concessions, particularly related to technology.
Additionally, Hasidism is not a uniform group, but is instead constituted by diverse sub-affiliations, or dynasties, with varying practices, beliefs, and religious texts. The Satmar communities I observed that speak primarily in Yiddush, for example, generally reject outreach to Jewish communities of less stringent observance and are ardently anti-Zionist.[43] Meanwhile, the Lubavitcher communities, following in the teachings of their rebbes, are committed to kiruv, a form of outreach and proselytization to non-observant Jews. They generally speak Yiddish and English (some speak Hebrew and Spanish, as well), adopt the Zionist ideological attachment to Israel, and manage an emissary program with 3,500 institutions in 100 countries around the world.[44] The Bobov communities are relatively similar in insularity to the Satmar community but are not publicly vocal about Zionism. Generally, among the Hasidim, religious praxes are certainly varied (notably, messianic yearnings and Zionism are vastly different between Satmar and Lubavitcher dynasties), as are dressing customs and rules. Within each community, it is customary to follow the traditions and laws passed down by the rebbes through generations.
Numerous ethnographies describe Hasidism in the New World and the religious praxes that resist encroaching secularism; structures of Hasidic education, language, economy, and family have all been documented extensively through robust description. This analysis departs in its central placement of material culture and dress in a detailed analysis of Hasidic praxis.
Methodology
I employ qualitative non-participant observation and interview in order to present and interpret experience through thick and intimate description. Ethnographic analysis and interview are undoubtedly distinct from phenomenology, as both have developed out of disparate disciplinary boundaries. While not incompatible, both methods demand a varied approach to observation, data collection, and interpretation. Yet, I find it useful here to include interpretive phenomenology with ethnographic fieldwork and interview in order to interrogate the “dimension of wear” as intimately as it is experienced and ascribed with meaning.[45] What makes this research sociological is its grounding in empirical evidence; the inclusion of phenomenology as a methodological approach rooted in philosophy does not lessen this fact but rather centralizes social practices and the experiences of those performing them. Importantly, I intend not to reduce the Hasidim to their bodies, as can be done when exploring the ethnographic “Other,” although I do wish to frame the body as a significant medium of both experience and presentation. I also do not wish to depict Hasidim as the sole Jewish practitioners of strict religious rules and boundaries; many non-Hasidic Orthodox communities follow similar rules and customs.
I observed within three ethnic enclaves in Brooklyn, NY: the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg, the Bobov Hasidic community of Borough Park, and the Lubavitcher (Chabad) Hasidic community of Crown Heights.[46] As of 2017, New York State contained the highest percentage—approximately 26%—and number—1,759,570—of American Jews.[47] The most recent statistical data of the Jewish community of the New York City metropolitan area, gathered in 2001, shows that Borough Park and Williamsburg contain the greatest populations of Orthodox and Hasidic Jewry.[48] Additionally, Brooklyn contains the largest Jewish population, greatest growth rate, highest percentage of Jewish children, and highest measures of Jewish engagement and connection among the eight county area recorded.[49] These three communities were chosen for this research because of their prominence as centers for diasporic Hasidic Jewry, their historical legacies as refuge for Jewish immigrants, and their placement among other diverse communities of Brooklyn.
My ethnographic data is constituted by close observation over a two month-long period in June and July of 2019, supplemented by semi-structured interviews in the same month. A majority of my time spent observing occurred on the main streets of each community—Lee Avenue in Williamsburg, Kingston Avenue in Crown Heights, and 13th Avenue in Borough Park—where I both walked and sat while taking notes and photographs. I visited each community six times for at least two hours each time, totalling over 36 hours of observation. I also observed in various specialized clothing shops and kosher groceries in each community. I paid close attention to differences among age, gender, class, and piety, tracing subtleties within homogenous-presenting groups. Short interviews helped to identify garment names, varied practices around dressing, and, most significantly, a phenomenology of Hasidic material culture. Interview subjects were obtained through my own outreach and through connection; my eldest brother, a rabbinical student of the Yeshivish sub-affiliation within Orthodox Jewry, connected me with one Hasidic acquaintance. Each interview followed a list of questions about dress and identity, but at times included broader discussions of Hasidic praxis. The most noteworthy interviews took place with Frieda Vizel, a woman raised in the Satmar community who left to pursue Western secular education, and Rav Fishel Schechter, a Hasidic rabbi of a boys cheder (school) in Borough Park. I interviewed Frieda over a four-hour period walking through Williamsburg and Rav Schechter over a one-hour period in his office at the cheder.
Data
My observations, along with the religious handbooks to which I was directed and read,[50] allowed me to become familiar with the many rules structuring dress and comportment. The interviews imbued this research with particular—yet undeniably cohesive—personal experiences. While this section does not comprehensively list each official and unofficial religious law related to dress and comportment, it intends to offer a useful description of both the many ways in which the body is managed for Hasidim and also the subject-object relationships that form under this specifically religious context. What follows is a description of the garments and their corresponding practices and rules for men and for women.[51]
Men are the most homogenous-presenting group within Hasidic culture. Figure 1 depicts the traditional daily presentation of a Hasidic Jew. As the image shows, Hasidic men wear either a rekel or a kapoteh, a long double-breasted black frock coat made from wool or polyester, over black slacks. The frock coat is worn throughout the year. On the Sabbath (Friday evening through Saturday night) and holidays, the rekel is replaced by a bekishe, a patterned black frock made from silk. This switch—replacing daily aesthetics with more refined wear—is made to honor the Sabbath, which is considered a holier day. Regardless of day, under the frock coats men wear a button-down white dress shirt and tzitzit, a four cornered garment with four fringes (see Figure 2). Tzitzit are worn following a biblical commandment in Numbers 15:38-40 (“they shall make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments”), which reasons that a man will always be reminded of the biblical commandments when wearing the fringes. Under the fringes is either a white t-shirt or a lengthened white tunic, both serving as undergarments. Daily attire is regularly accented with the gartel, as shown in Figure 3, a crocheted black belt worn by men while praying during each of their three daily prayers. This belt, exclusively a religious garment, is tied around the waist over the frock coat and serves to separate the lower body’s less pure parts (e.g. genitalia) and the upper body’s more elevated parts (e.g. the heart). This follows a biblically derived instruction to prepare the body for prayer (Amos 4:12). These garments can be costly: at one busy shop in Williamsburg I entered, gartels started at $200 and increased in price depending on width and ornamentation.
Hasidic men’s presentation is accented by a hat, worn daily and generally removed indoors except for during prayers. Satmar Hasidic men wear either the shtufene hit, a tall black felt hat as in Figure 4, or the biber hit, a flat felt hat as in Figure 5. Lubavitcher men wear a fedora (often from the Italian brand Borsalino), a shaped black felt hat as in Figure 6. These hats are worn following the tradition—though not commandment—of covering the head as a reminder of God’s eternal presence. This tradition for wearing a hat is derived from the same practice corresponding to the wearing of a yarmulke or kippah, a skullcap worn by men and boys at all times other than bathing (as in Figure 7), including under the hat. Hats are worn in accordance with the tradition of each Hasidic dynasty; differences in shape are attributed to rabbinical traditions in Europe. On the Sabbath and religious holidays, and special occasions like weddings, men of certain Hasidic dynasties wear a shtreimel or spodik—a cylindrical fur hat as in Figure 8—instead of a black hat. In Brooklyn, the Satmar Hasidim most commonly wear shtreimels. In my interview, Rav Schechter explained its origins in 18th century Poland, where Jewish men were forced by the government to wear a variation of the hat as a symbol of stigma, a visible form of ostracization that was consciously negated and appropriated by Hasidim into a source of pride.[52] A shtreimel is thought to elevate the Sabbath through its extravagance; therefore, many cost between $500-$3,000. Rav Schechter noted that in one Hasidic community, the rebbe instituted a price cap on shtreimels in the face of materialism. An example of such materialism can be seen in Figure 9, which reads in Yiddish “the Rolex of shtreimels” and advertises a luxury shtreimel (priced in the thousands) whose purpose as a head covering and religious object could otherwise be satisfied with a less expensive item. Yet, a more valuable hat like this one is seen by some to enhance religious devotion writ large, and, for some the decision to invest in what would be considered luxury is a means of raising oneself rather than standing above others.
Men’s grooming practice follows the general biblical commandment in Leviticus 19:27 (“Do not round off [the hair] at the edges of your heads”), which has been interpreted as a prohibition against cutting a man’s sidelocks and facial hair. For this reason, both boys and men grow out their sidelocks as payos, as in Figure 10, and their beards, which are left unshaven. Hasidic mysticism places emphasis on the hair of both the payos and the beard, as well.
Variations do exist within the general pattern of homogeneity among Hasidic men. The most conservative men may wear white breeches that enclose the slacks up to the knee (see Figure 11), a religious male leader such as a rebbe may distinguish himself by wearing higher quality or ornamented garb, and different sects (e.g. Lubavitcher or Satmar) maintain distinct practices for the wearing of hats, frocks, and sidecurls. There are also variations in price and quality of all garments, including a growing luxury market, as noted previously in reference to the shtreimel. Nevertheless, the most crucial foundation upon which all Hasidic men are obligated to present and comport the body is the set of rules termed tzniut, or modesty, as set out within the Bible, Talmud, and subsequent Jewish texts. Jewish tradition believes in the boundless presence of God, wherein there is little distinction between public and private. For this reason, tzniut dictates the general belief that managing the exterior body mediates internal identity, both in public and private. Ostentation and materialism are forbidden, as is improper showing of skin (uncovered torso and upper legs for men). I found in my observations that men followed the ideology of modesty by wearing the traditional dress (dark slacks, white shirt, frock coat). Rav Schechter explained that young boys are instructed in the moral and spiritual significance of adhering to tzniut; he affirmed that boys are highly excited when they purchase their first black coat and hat at age 13, as these materials instantiate the transition to adulthood.[53] Additionally, in response to a question about the significance of material culture for Hasidim, Rav Schecther expressed that “the purpose of creation is loyalty to Hashem [God]. Spirituality is limited through the soul, but the physical connection offers more opportunity to fulfill mitzvot [commandments].”[54] While the management of the female body, as described next, appears more stringent, men clearly embody the theory of tzniut through their relationships with objects of dress and with comportment.
The practices of dressing as a Hasidic woman are more complex, and many more variations in style among Hasidic women exist. Like men, women are expected to conform to the rules of tzniut through strict enforcement of rules regarding the body and its presentation (see Figures 12-13, below). Women wear tops—usually blouses or dresses— that cover the complete torso (see Figure 13). Any top must cover from a woman’s collar-bone down. Under rabbinic decree, a woman’s upper arms must be covered and sleeves typically must extend at least three inches below the elbow. Women’s garments are not supposed to be overly form-fitting or revealing, as this breaches tzniut boundaries; similarly, tops are opaque and buttons are always fastened to the neckline to prevent immodest exposure. If a shirt does not cover the body, or if a shirt is sleeveless, a shell (solid-colored cotton shirt) is worn beneath. There are many unwritten rules regarding colors, patterns, and fabric; following the ideology of modesty, women’s clothing cannot be too conspicuous and women should not seek attention through their dress. In our interview, Frieda explained that within Hasidic communities, certain materials, colors, patterns, and cuts are called “secular” or “goyish” and are viewed as manifestations of immodesty, greed, and impiety.[55] A brightly colored shirt, for example, calls for attention and metallic shoes are ostentatious. Embracing Hasidic dress is said to be a rejection of profane secularism.
Women must cover their lower bodies under Jewish law; pants are forbidden for Hasidic a woman as they reveal the outline of her legs, and because the wearing of such garments breaches a biblical commandment against cross-dressing (Deutoronomy 22:5). Figure 14 depicts the general presentation of a Hasidic woman’s lower body. Dark-colored skirts are favored, although dresses are also often worn. The garment must fall at least four inches below the lowest part of the knee. Shorter skirts, tight skirts, and slits are avoided for their conspicuousness and immodesty. In addition, most Hasidic women wear skin-colored stockings, although in some communities I observed the wearing of dark stockings and/or stockings with seams. Stockings similarly follow the rules of tzniut, which demand that the full leg must be covered. Additionally, most women wear dark colored shoes so as not to draw attention to the foot. It is customary to cover the foot fully (no sandals), though some communities permit open-toed shoes. A woman’s shoes are not supposed to make loud noise when she walks so as to avoid drawing improper attention.
Hasidic women’s hair is the most varied practice I observed. As Talmudic rabbinical law dictates that women must cover their hair, it is customary for married Hasidic women to wear sheitels, or wigs, as a form of veiling. These wigs, as in Figure 15, completely cover a woman’s natural hair. They generally range in price between $600 and $3,000. Sheitels are either worn uncovered or are covered with a hat (as in Figure 16), or tichel, a scarf (as in Figure 17), which both fulfill the obligation to cover the hair. Practices around covering the hair vary significantly across and within Hasidic communities. Many customs follow interpretations of mystical thought around the spiritual significance of hair, which teach the consequences and rewards that result from failing or succeeding to cover, respectively. The length of one’s sheitel can vary, as can the material (real, synthetic, or combination). Frieda explained that in her Satmar community, long wigs are considered less pious so women wear short cuts.[56] Her community requires women to shave off the hair under their sheitels regularly and to wear a tichel over the sheitel. Meanwhile, I observed a majority of women in Crown Heights wearing long sheitels without tichels and, in Borough Park, a mix of women wearing short sheitels with and without scarves and hats.
I have, herein, described the rules of dress for Hasidic men and women, along with their corresponding practices and variations. In my fieldwork, in addition to noting the rules of dress and the names of each garment, I observed the ways in which materiality is central to Hasidic religious praxis for both men and women. Self-presentation and bodily discipline is made sacred for the Hasidim. In addition to the mystical purposes of some garments, prayers are said upon the wearing of new clothes and some Hasidic sects maintain special practices for putting on and removing clothing. For example, some sects maintain traditions regarding which arm should enter a garment first, and whether one must change clothes under a blanket in awareness of the presence of God. Certainly, material culture is understood to elevate the soul by ornamenting or modifying the body correctly according to time and space. Rav Schecther explained to me that all matter within a Hasidic existence has spiritual significance; devotion to God is substantiated through even the most mundane and profane needs of the human body, which for Hasidim he argues, “are not viewed as profane precisely through the intricate practices.”[57]
I observed dozens of Hasidic men’s and women’s clothing shops in Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Borough Park, which were full of shoppers at each of the various days and times I visited throughout the summer. There are many luxury stores within each community, including a Williamsburg shop that sells designer tichels from brands names like Salvatorre Farragamo, a high-end Borough Park boutique sheitel salon, and a Crown Heights men’s shop that sells solely one brand of button-down white shirts manufactured in Italy. While I was told that Hasidim should avoid ostentation, their customs are not devoid of consumerist practice. Frieda explained that Brooklyn is well-known among Hasidic communities worldwide to contain the most wealthy Hasidim, and many Hasidim and other Orthodox Jews will travel to Brooklyn specifically to purchase clothing, food, and home items.[58]
While I maintained a profound interest in the minute Hasidic practices of religious observance throughout my fieldwork, I was nevertheless told by various members of the community that Hasidic dress, for the Hasidim, “is simply natural” as Rav Schechter said.[59] Dressing as a Hasidic man or woman becomes routine, but does serve as a consistent reminder that each Hasidic person not only represents all Hasidim, but also becomes responsible for all Jews. Material adornment of the Hasidic body serves a uniquely indispensable purpose that is both collective and individual. Rav Schecther was adamant in explaining that Hasidic dress is not only one necessary geder (fence) established to maintain a closed society, but also demonstrates a tremendous source of pride in Jewish tradition. Dress for the Hasidim, he argued, has always been practical as it forces each individual to know his or her place, literally and figuratively. But more than this practicality, Hasidic tradition teaches that the exterior body is a site that must be contained and guarded in order to direct attention to the development of the interior self. This, Rav Schecther explained, is the most profound reason Hasidim dress the way they do.
It is necessary to note the forceful social reproach that accompanies failure to comply with rules. Hasidic children in their respective gender-segregated schools are reprimanded for dress infractions, I was told.[60] So are adults. Frieda remembers an incident that occurred when she still lived in her Hasidic community: there was a time at which she had stopped shaving the hair under her wig.[61] One day she received a call from a female community member demanding to check her hair. Frieda shaved her head before the woman could check because the woman had threatened to have Frieda’s son expelled from school should she not conform. This incident is an example of the way in which codes of conforming are enforced by others under a collective sociality. Although not to the same extent, I experienced similar communal reaction to my corporeal presentation. When I conducted observations in Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Borough Park, I tried to the best of my ability to conform to communal standards by wearing black pants, a button down white shirt, and a kippah. I did not, however, don payos, a substantial beard, a black hat, nor a frock coat. I spoke to one Hasidic shop owner in Borough Park who expressed that the exposure of my ankles and the color of my kippah (light grey) immediately allowed him to recognize that I was not Hasidic. At another moment, while interviewing Frieda in Williamsburg, we approached three Hasidic children selling coloring books on the street. Frieda wanted to purchase a book from them but when she inquired about the price, they failed to respond. Although Frieda was raised Hasidic, her pants and t-shirt on that day reflected her status as non-Hasidic, and, therefore, she believed the children were unwilling to talk to us. She explained that she did not speak Yiddish, her first language, because the cognitive dissonance she causes within Hasidic children as a non-Hasidic-presenting woman speaking their private language is highly disconcerting. This interaction, she explained, reflected their in-group identity and discomfort encountering otherness. It is dress in this situation (not language, belief, etc.) that mediates sociality.[62]
Despite my observations around corporeal difference, while Hasidic enclaves are often referred to as total institutions, complete with totalizing “structuring structures” of religious ideology, I did observe a seeming unstable insularity through these communities’ quotidien encounters with otherness. For example, the Satmar Hasidim of South Williamsburg live just minutes from one of the most hip areas of Brooklyn, North Williamsburg. I observed Satmar Hasidim taking the subway, walking the same streets as secular residents, and venturing into Midtown Manhattan to shop. Similarly, the neighborhood itself is not cordoned off, meaning Hasidim regularly encounter difference in many spaces. During one distinct period of observation in South Williamsburg, I watched as a group of around fifty European tourists from Spain exited a coach bus, walked down two blocks of the main Hasidic thoroughfare taking photographs, and then returned to the bus again. This popular tour, I was told by the guide, often stops to show visitors the seemingly preserved, archaic lifestyle of the Hasidim. As the tourists—dressed in t-shirts, tank tops, shorts, and pants—walked through, I watched as multiple Hasidic men bent their heads down, walked around the group, and ultimately abandoned the sidewalk and to the street, although there was plenty of space. Frieda explained how men are forbidden from encountering immodesty, so they often walk off the sidewalk to avoid confronting ervah (nudity).[63] As this example demonstrates, there are clearly daily interactions between the Hasidim and those that practice outside their traditions.
Discussion
In the following section, I analyze the process—and product—of boundary-making through embodied praxis. Rather than tacitly acknowledge the corporeal differences practiced by the Hasidim and ignore the very purpose of material for these Jews, I am committed here to an analysis that understands religion through the subject-object relationship constructed and maintained. It is in these objects and in comportment that religion can be read and, in a certain regard, determined. Perhaps the premise of this analysis appears to speciously hyperbolize the significance of dress, particularly when articulated by an outsider. If religion is both a practice and a state that can be located within action and interiority (belief, desire), how, then, could dress instantiate religion? Religion—which Durkheim explains as beliefs and rites of spiritual significance—is a social phenomenon, or more precisely a strong social institution.[64] Regardless of Hasidism’s tenants of internalized devotion and divine mysticism, as a sociological entity, the Hasidic community reifies its religion through ideology and praxis, of which presentation and interaction are the most visible forms. I follow Althusser’s argument that “there is no practice except by and in an ideology.”[65] Hasidic subjectivity, therefore, is produced through the interpellation of ideology. I have found through my observations that Hasidic dress operates ideologically in the following ways: to discipline the body and its gender and sexuality, to mediate both collective/individual and external/internal identities, to construct ideological boundaries particularly through isolation and insularization, and to resist secularization. These are aspects that may not first present as features of material culture, especially when religious handbooks argue that “covering yourself is…the most fundamental way of saying, ‘I’m more than a body,”[66] and “even though our bodies are an integral part of ourselves, we are not essentially physical beings.”[67]
The most prominent feature of dress and comportment for the Hasidic people is its function as a boundary. As a physical boundary, a marker of religious belief, certain garments and coverings delimit what is deemed sexually explicit. The Jewish sumptuary laws permit only those appearances that follow strict standards. Both the male body and female body are managed through dress and must comport according to the rules of tzniut. The Hasidic body becomes a highly precarious site under the ideology of tzniut that must be managed based on spatial and temporal guidelines. What a Hasidic person wears determines how he or she is perceived, wants to be perceived, and needs to be perceived under strongly collectivist structures. The iterative practices of dressing as a Hasidic person are certainly limiting. They not only reinforce but construct the social body. Clearly, dress and tzniut are ideologically interpellative and reproduce social structures. The examples I provided earlier about social reproach indicate the necessity of compliance; there are serious consequences facing those who deviate from prescribed norms, including ostracization—i.e. the breaking of social networks—and official sanction. Hasidic teaching, rather than focus on this precarity, discursively produces the body as a medium through which holiness can be practiced. For Hasidim, the negative practices (prohibitions) are transformed as enabling. One modesty manual argues, “tzniut is infinitely more than what we wear—it’s who we are…. Rather than restricting, tzniut is, in the most profound sense, liberating.”[68]
Goffman’s theory of performance offers a useful intervention here: the Hasidic dressing practices, and the materials themselves, do not simply represent the ideology of modesty but produce them. While sexuality is concealed, gender is concurrently produced here in a tightly-bound binary. Importantly, within Hasidic culture, gender, sex, and sexuality operate differently than they do in Western secularism (particulary feminist and queer ontologies). Biblical notions of immorality are maintained through material composure. However, prohibitions and limitations around self-presentation, comportment, and gender are viewed, at least by those with whom I spoke, as empowering.
Adopting the ideology of tzniut can at once be a demonstration of agential self-rule and a concession to Jewish law and social restriction; while not dissimilar to Foucault’s notion of docility, the Hasidic body self-regulates under social and moral strictures. Bourdieu oxymoronically asserts that “agents are, in their ordinary practice, the subjects of acts of construction of the social world.”[69] Dress is a means of being and becoming, and it signifies that a person is “self-governing but not autonomous.”[70] To view tzniut and its corresponding practices strictly as mechanisms for docility, objectification, submission, and domination disavows the position of Hasidim as producers and agents of Hasidic ideology and their own views of self. This is particularly noteworthy when focusing on women’s modesty practices regarding hair. As Scott points out, albeit about the woman’s body within Islamic practice, “The authority to accept religious prescription, paradoxically, lies in the willing self.”[71] However, and despite the arguments made by those I interviewed, to dislocate patriarchy from Hasidic tradition is to ignore the position of male leaders who have historically and almost exclusively interpreted and set Jewish law. This ambivalence is unresolvable; the Hasidic body, particularly the female body, is certainly manipulated, but the dialectic between self and society is at once objectifying and empowering, limiting and enabling.
In addition to the physical boundary constructed by dress, corporeal embodiment of Hasidic ideology both produces and maintains a marker of collective, insider identity. Only Hasidic Jews dress the way they do; non-Hasidic Jews, including religious Jews who are members of other sects, non-religious Jews, and non-Jews altogether, are easily distanced by the foreign and highly visible differences of presentation. Notably, Goffman discusses Jewish dress as “stigma symbols,” or voluntary devices of identity disclosure.[72] He briefly notes, “the self-symbolizing individual ensures his being cut off from the society of normale. The manner in which a sect of New York Jews present themselves provides an example.” Dress is a form of territorial management here, performing[73] into being insularity. Dress offers a conscious enactment of separatist and collective identification, perhaps arousing the “collective effervescence” that Durkheim theorizes.[74] Satmar Hasidim, who reject outreach, preserve isolation when surrounded by heterogeneous cultures. I maintain that this is accomplished most effectively through dress, which serves as a habitual, consistent embodied reminder of an “us” vs. “them” paradigm. Adhering to modesty codes prevents iniquitous acts (e.g. a Hasidic-dressed man would never enter an eatery that does not adhere to Jewish food laws), and eschews unwanted outgroup interaction. It also establishes a unified sectarian identity; for example, the flat Eastern European-style hats worn by the Satmar are highly distinct from the Lubavticher fedoras, and members are easily distinguishable. Paradoxically, for Lubavitcher Hasidim defined by significant outreach beyond their communal boundaries, their stringent attachment to sartorial and bodily strictures actually enforces self-identification. Dress serves to maintain ethnic particularism by establishing propriety; encountering difference only strengthens one’s belief in Hasidic ontology.
The incident I recounted earlier regarding the Hasidic men moving off the sidewalk as they approached the tourists is a relevant example of the maintenance of ethnic particularism through dress. For these men, walking near an immodestly clad woman is considered improper, and, thereby, they abandoned the sidewalk. At the same time, that instance was a meaningful act of self-identification on the part of the Hasidic men. These religious men encountered otherness yet strengthened personal identification. They left the sidewalk to avoid interaction with an Otherness made identifiable and material through dress. Clearly, the boundary of dress is constructed to be impermeable, and to mark distinct external and internal identity in the presence of otherness, through a strict adherence to maintaining distinction. And this boundary is seemingly successful in that Hasidic communities continue to maintain their respective practices and aesthetics in the face of otherness.
Hasidic territorial management through corporeal embodiment itself intends to resist secularization. Hasidic doctrine has been fearful of encroaching secularization since before the Hasidim came to America. Surrendering to the secular way of life means losing the very identity of Judaism that the Hasidim have toiled for centuries to preserve. Among language, economy, education, family, and geography, dress is a structure used to prevent disintegration into secularism; it is perhaps the most intimate, individualised, and frequently employed feature of religious preservation. For Hasidim in Brooklyn, exposure to the immodest is a daily occurrence that both men and women alike confront, provoking them to internally and obdurately repudiate what is perceived as a disruption to Hasidic ideological boundaries. The antimodern secular aesthetic that is embraced, while certainly a manifestation of preserved tradition, more so delimits admissible comportment through a starkly juxtaposed self-identification. For example, when Frieda expressed the impropriety of certain garment colors, materials, and cuts, as mentioned earlier, she was depicting the way in which, for Hasidim, objects take on the role of ideology.
Hasidic propriety under what Buber terms shiflut (humility) is upheld through dress, which mediates collective and individual identities.[75] Although subtle differences in style are permitted, and individuals are not restricted absolutely from fashioning an exterior self identity, Hasidic communalism demands relative homogeneity. Distinction through luxury goods is more subtle than conspicuous, and is not a sign of individualism; finer fabrics and furs are not immediately visually identifiable as possessing higher pecuniary status, but are recognized and appreciated by the wearer. Much emphasis is placed on conforming to tradition. The Hasidic conceptualization of individualism lies separate from the Western notion that is linked so intimately with capitalism. Hasidim value collectivity through exterior presentation, and individualism only through deed and soul. This is why Hasidic communities appear relatively homogenous—exterior identity is important only so much as it can mediate the internal self.
The Hasidim with whom I spoke concurred that Hasidic tradition forbids materialistic pursuits and tendencies; after all, the telos of tzniut is its reflection of inner nobility. Despite these claims that reject attachment to the material realm, it is clear that Hasidic praxis necessitates materialism for its religious attainment. The number of specialized garments and rules for their use demonstrate this fact. The most extreme example of this necessity can be found in the many luxury goods and shops I came across. For example, the “the Rolex of shtreimels” advertised in Figure 9 is one such material that is totemically desirable among Hasidic men. The luxury hat, while not so much a means of individualizing identity as it is a means of strengthening personal religious devotion, is, nevertheless, made highly appealing to the point that Hasidic men will spend thousands of dollars on its purchase. Although no more or less materialistic than Western capitalist consumers, the spiritual elements attributed to Hasidic material differentiate the centrality of material to their culture. Paradoxically, the claim disavowing materialism is unsubstantiated in the many Hasidic dressing practices and consumerist tendencies that have developed. It is likely that American consumerism and the demands of a capitalist economy—wherein Hasidim are, indeed, small-business owners and profit from the market—has influenced the habits of Hasidic consumers. However, despite Brooklyn’s reputation as a mecca of Hasidic consumption, and Hasidic attachment to materiality, these communities face relatively penurious living conditions.[76] It is worth noting here that as of 2011, over half of the Jewish households in Williamsburg and Borough Park had an average income of under $50,000 per year, and both Jewish communities have the lowest annual incomes among Jews in the New York metropolitan area.[77]
One major ambivalence can be drawn from the ostensible rejection of the Hasidic body’s materiality. Narratives provided in my interviews and in religious handbooks proclaim that true identity is not found within the body, which simply serves as a vessel for the soul. Nevertheless, the attention paid to the body’s management—hexis constituting habitus, as Bourdieu explains—indicates otherwise. Rules of modesty are said to exemplify inner beauty, not superficiality.[78] Both female and male sexuality are guarded through the use of dress and comportment to prevent improper exposure and safeguard biblical, Talmudic, and mystic obligations. The Hasidim imbue immense meaning to the body while simultaneously encouraging a move away from it: “We know that our bodies are not our essence,” one Hasidic guide for religious modesty states.[79] The same book portends the dangers of materiality (“excessive identification with our physical selves results in being obsessed with materialistic pursuits”),[80] yet instructs Jewish children to strictly manage the body through material (“Every time we refrain from showing off our bodies with attention-grabbing clothes, we reinforce the message to ourselves: you are not your body”).[81] This inordinate emphasis on managing the body positions Hasidic identity as hyper-corporeal. For Hasidism, guarding the body is meant to transpose exterior propriety to interior disposition; inherent already is a belief in and fixation with both the body’s materiality and social construction. The Hasidic body is clearly essentialized as immutably gendered, coded by its presentation, and judged on the basis of its conformity to proper law and tradition. At the same time, Hasidic ideology paradoxically warns against an over-attachment to the body.
These conclusions are by no means absolute nor fully representative of the nuances of Hasidic ideology, but nevertheless demonstrate how central dress is to religious identity for these adherents.
Conclusion
Committing myself to such research proved complex. I faced many challenges gaining entry; like any outsider conducting research in a Hasidic community, I was not immediately embraced. Although I tried with only limited success to partially adopt the Hasidic dress code for men each time I observed a community, my hair was too short, my ankles too visible, and my mannerisms too foreign. I do not speak Yiddish, which was a major hurdle that prevented me from speaking with some community members. Understandably, I posed the same threat of encroaching secularism that I examine in this research. As an outsider to the Hasidic lifestyle, I quickly internalized the need to denaturalize my own notions of sex and gender, lest I risked understanding Western secular gender as the natural ontology and the Hasidic version as an infraction. I had to consciously resist the civilizing discourse that places the Hasidim as temporally anterior and regressive while favoring secular modernity. Additionally, as an academic-in-training versed in feminist theory, I was cautious not to critically establish the Hasidic tradition as entirely patriarchal, though many aspects do operate (under the context of Western feminism) in such a way. Respecting the fraught relationship between self and society proved challenging for me; cultural relativism and feminism may not align here, and the dialectic of structure and agency is contestable.
Aside from the difficulties, bridging my own background with my findings about Hasidic tradition proved fascinating. I was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish community whose religious values certainly deviated from the rigid conservatism of Hasidism; nevertheless, dress in my community was a valuable and necessary marker of identity, viewed, however, as secondary and devalued ironically as immaterial. My religious high school, for example, required that male students wear a collared shirt, pants, and a kippah, and I was often reprimanded for wearing sweaters without collars. Meanwhile, female students were required to wear skirts that fell below the knees and sleeves that fell below the elbow, and rabbis used a conspicuous hand gesture to signify length infractions. We were commonly instructed that tzniut was enforced upon females in order for males not to be distracted. While this framing of the ideology of modesty does find support within rabbinic teachings, it lacks the depth and nuance of the robust embrace of tzniut that I observed in Hasidic communities. It was under these stringent cultural practices structuring my own life that I was first made curious as a student of sociology to question and unpack these very tangible expressions of selfhood that lie central to Jewish religious observance. The Hasidim proved to adopt this expression in a more concretely visible manner, particularly in the spaces of cosmopolitan New York City.
Under the premise of the ontological turn, I have come to realize that Hasidic dress, Modern Orthodox dress, and secular dress (however varied by time and place) are not simply deviations from each other, but each a product of different worlds of being. Just as this research is premised on the intricacies of Hasidic praxis and the corresponding garments and distinctions, one could easily write about the way in which I interact with material culture. One could take note of the way in which my class, gender, sexuality, and race, among other identities, are constituted by the materials with which I choose to identify—with agency but certainly under social strictures. Similarly, regardless of my critical interpretations of capitalist consumption, I am a consumer attached to material, an automatic commodity fetishist.[82] I ask, then, whether my own consumption and identification through materiality embodies culture as it does for the Hasidim. Indeed, I believe it does, though not in the same form.
My intention in pursuing this research has been twofold: to identify how social life is reproduced under religious ideology, and to understand how material culture is inextricable from the social body. This research is much broader in scope than simply an analysis of dress; in analyzing dressing practices and comportment, I expound upon a traditional analysis of religion, asking how identity is composed and made meaningful through materiality and consumption. Contrary to the assumption that secularism and liberalism have dominated American social life, religious Judaism is thriving and growing, particularly in New York City. By analyzing the cultural fabric of Hasidic Jewry in New York, I deeply interrogate identity formation through a material context often ignored and devalued, and hope to contribute to the growing cultural sociologies that discern the complexity of the minute—but sociologically significant—practices of everyday life.
References
Althusser, Louis. [1970] 2001. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation).” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essay, 85-126. Translated by Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Auslander, Leora. 2017. “Jews and Material Culture.” In The Cambridge History of Judaism, edited by Mitchell B. Hart and Tony Michels: 804-830. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Barthes, Roland. 1985. The Fashion System. Translated by Matthew Ward and Richard Howard. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Belcove-Shalin, Janet S. 1995. “Introduction: New World Hasidim.” In New World Hasidim: Ethnographic Studies of Hasidic Jews in America, edited by Janet S. Belcove-Shalin: 1-30. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
———1979. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Buber, Martin. 1958. Hasidism and Modern Man, edited and translated by Maurice Friedman. New York: Harper and Row.
Butler, Judith. 1988. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40, no. 4: 519-531.
Brown, Bill. 2004. “Thing Theory.” In Things, edited by Bill Brown, 1-16. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———2010. “Objects, Others, and Us (The Refabrication of Things).” Critical Inquiry 36, no. 2: 183-217.
Chin, Elizabeth. 2016. My Life with Things. Duke University Press. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Douglass, Mary. 1970. Natural Symbols. London: Routledge.
Durkheim, Émile. [1912] 1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by Karen Fields. New York: The Free Press.
El-Or, Tamar. 1993. “The length of the slits and the spread of luxury: Reconstructing the subordination of ultra-orthodox Jewish women through the patriarchy of men scholars.” Sex Roles: A Journal of Research 29, no. 9-10: 585-598.
Entwistle, Joanna. 2000. “Fashion and the Fleshy Body: On Dress as Embodied Practice.” Fashion Theory 4, no. 3: 323-347.
———2015. The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Falk, Pesach Eliyahu. 2011. Modesty: An Adornment for Life. Spring Valley, NY: Feldheim Press.
Fayer, Ayala. 2009. Mitzvah Girls: Bringing Up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House.
Friedman, C.T. 2019. Adorned with Dignity. Brooklyn, NY: (n.p.).
Beck, Pearl, Steven M. Cohen, Jacob B. Ukeles, and Ron Miller. 2013. “Geographic Profile.” In Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011, revised ed. New York: UJA-Federation of New York.
Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
———1971. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin.
Harris, Lis. 1985. Holy Days: The World of the Hasidic Family. New York: Touchstone Press.
Heilman, Samuel. 2019. Who Will Lead Us? The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America. Oakland: University of California Press.
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara and Jeffrey Shandler. 2007. “Introduction.” Material Religion 3, no. 3: 308-312.
Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lipovetsky, Gilles. 1994. The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy. Translated by Porter Catherine. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Manoloson, Gila. 2005. Outside/Inside: A Fresh look at Tzniut, 2nd ed. Southfield, MI: Targum Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1945) 2012. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. New York and London: Routledge.
———1964. The Primacy of Perception. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Miller, Daniel. 2005. “Introduction.” In Clothing as Material Culture. Edited by Daniel Miller and Susanne Küchler. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Morris, Bonnie. “Agents or Victims of Religious Ideology?: Approaches to Locating Hasidic Women in Feminist Studies.” In New World Hasidim.
Poll, Solomon. [1962] 2017. The Hasidic Community of Williamsburg: A Study in the Sociology of Religion. London: Routledge.
Salamon, Gayle. 2018. The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenomenology of Transphobia. New York: New York University Press.
Scott, Joan Wallach. 2007. The Politics of the Veil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Schechter, Fishel. Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 15, 2019.
Shaffir, William. 1995. “Boundaries and Self-Presentation Among the Hasidim: A Study in Identity Maintenance.” In New World Hasidim: Ethnographic Studies of Hasidic Jews in America, edited by Janet S. Belcove-Shalin: 31-68. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.
Sheskin, Ira M. and Arnold Dashefsky. 2017. “United States Jewish Population, 2017.” In The American Jewish Year Book 17, edited by Arnold Dashefsky and Ira M. Sheskin: 179-284. New York and Dordrecht, NL: Springer.
Tavory, Iddo. 2016. Summoned: Identification and Religious Life in a Jewish Neighborhood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Vaisman Schulman, Asya. 2016. “Seamed Stockings and Ponytails: Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork in a Contemporary Hasidic Community.” In Going to the People: Jews and the Ethnographic Impulse, edited by Jeffrey Veidlinger: 282-299. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Vorhand, Baila. 2019. Free to Be Me. Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications.
Vizel, Frieda. Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 28, 2019.
Warwick, Alexandra and Dani Cavallaro. 1998. Fashioning the Frame: Boundaries, Dress and the Body. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
[1] While I delineate the binary of religious and secular simplistically, i.e. ostensibly defining secular as the absence of religious ideology, I recognize the complexity with the discursive production of “secular.” I follow Asad’s (2003) formulation of modern secularism as unstable and syncretic.
[2] Gilles Lipovetsky, 1994. The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy. Trans. by Porter Catherine. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 3-4.
[3] Daniel Miller, “Introduction” In Clothing as Material Culture, Ed. by Daniel Miller and Susanne Küchler. (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2005), 3.
[4] Roland Barthes, The Fashion System, Trans. by Matthew Ward and Richard Howard. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, (London: Methuen, 1979).
[5] Joanna Entwistle, “Fashion and the Fleshy Body: On Dress as Embodied Practice” in Fashion Theory 4, no. 3 (2000): 326.
[6] Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London: Penguin, 1971).
[7] Judith Butler argues one step further and repudiates Goffman’s view: “As opposed to a view such as Erving Goffman’s which posits a self which assumes and exchanges various ‘roles’ within the complex social expectations of the ‘game’ of modern life, I am suggesting that this self is not only irretrievably ‘outside,’ constituted in social discourse, but that the ascription of interiority is itself a publicly regulated and sanctioned form of essence fabrication.”
[8] Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 14.
[9] Entwistle, “Fashion and the Fleshy Body: On Dress as Embodied Practice,” 336.
[10] Mary Douglass, Natural Symbols (London: Routledge, 1970), 72.
[11] Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Trans. by Richard Nice. Cambridge, (UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 72.
[12] Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 72.
[13] Bourdieu, 95.
[14] Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Trans. by Alan Sheridan. (New York: Random House, 1977).
[15] Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 136.
[16] Entwistle, “Fashion and the Fleshy Body: On Dress as Embodied Practice,” 329.
[17] Entwistle, 332.
[18] Entwistle, 27.
[19] Entwistle, 4.
[20] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception,Trans. by Colin Smith (New York and London: Routledge, 1945/2012).
[21] Gayle Salamon, The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenomenology of Transphobia (New York: New York University Press, 2008), 15-16.
[22] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964/2012), 101.
[23] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, 149.
[24] Merleau-Ponty, 5.
[25] Entwistle, 29.
[26] Bill Brown, “Objects, Others, and Us (The Refabrication of Things).” Critical Inquiry 36, no. 2 (2010): 188.
[27] Daniel Miller, “Introduction,” in Clothing as Material Culture. Ed. by Daniel Miller and Susanne Küchler. (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2005), 15.
[28] Latour’s (2005) “actor-network theory” is useful in navigating this interaction.
[29] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 137.
[30] Miller, “Introduction,” in Clothing as Material Culture, 3.
[31] Leora Auslander, “Jews and Material Culture,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, ed. by Mitchell B. Hart and Tony Michels (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2017) 804-830.
[32] Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jeffrey Shandler “Introduction,” Material Religion 3, no. 3 (2007): 309-10.
[33] This forbidance is interpreted rabbinically under the biblically codified prohibition against constructing graven images in the second of the ten commandments.
[34] Auslander, “Jews and Material Culture,” 837.
[35] Brown, “Objects, Others, and Us (The Refabrication of Things),” 7.
[36] Janet S. Belcove-Shalin, “Introduction: New World Hasidim,” in New World Hasidim: Ethnographic Studies of Hasidic Jews in America, ed.by Janet S. Belcove-Shalin: 1-30. (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1995), 4.
[37] Belcove-Shalin, “Introduction: New World Hasidim,” 4.
[38] Martin Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man, ed. and trans. by Maurice Friedman (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 31.
[39] This dimension of mysticism is crucial to Hasidic practice as it stands in distinction to traditional Orthodox Judaism (litvish and yeshivish); while most traditions of Orthodoxy interact with Kabbalah, Hasidic theology more regularly embraces its teachings.
[40] Belcove-Shalin, “Introduction: New World Hasidim.”
[41] Other more geographically isolated communities were later established outside of New York City, including in New Square, Monsey, and Kiryas Joel.
[42] Solomon Poll, The Hasidic Community of Williamsburg: A Study in the Sociology of Religion. (London: Routledge, [1962] 2017), 258.
[43] Demonstration of this anti-Zionism can easily be found on street posters throughout Williamsburg that denounce the Israeli government and military. This stance towards Israel stems from their interpretation of religious texts that prohibit the re-settlement of the land of Israel prior to the Messiah’s arrival.
[44] Belcove-Shalin, 12.
[45] Miller, “Introduction,” in Clothing as Material Culture, 15.
[46] Although I was not raised in a Hasidic community, my Modern Orthodox upbringing has positioned my general knowledge of and comfort discussing Jewish tradition, law, and terminology.
[47] Sheskin, Ira M. and Arnold Dashefsky. 2017. “United States Jewish Population, 2017.” In The American Jewish Year Book 17, edited by Arnold Dashefsky and Ira M. Sheskin: 179-284. New York and Dordrecht, NL: Springer.
[48] Pearl Beck, Steven M. Cohen, Jacob B. Ukeles, and Ron Miller, “Geographic Profile,” in Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011, revised ed. (New York: UJA-Federation of New York, 2013).
[49] Beck, “Geographic Profile,” 35.
[50] Some of these handbooks are not strictly Hasidic although each was purchased in a Hasidic bookshop and marketed to members of the Hasidic community.
[51] I describe the rules of dress using the binaristic language of male and female because that is the only understood and accepted construction of gender for Hasidic Jews.
[52] Fishel Schechter, Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 15, 2019.
[53] Fishel Schechter, Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 15, 2019.
[54] Schechter, Interview by Joseph Weinger.
[55] Frieda Vizel, Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 28, 2019.
[56] Frieda Vizel, Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 28, 2019.
[57] Fishel Schechter, Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 15, 2019.
[58] Frieda Vizel, Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 28, 2019.
[59] Fishel Schechter, Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 15, 2019.
[60] Schechter, Interview by Joseph Weinger.
[61] Frieda Vizel, Interview by Joseph Weinger. Personal interview. Brooklyn, NY, July 28, 2019.
[62] Vizel, Interview by Joseph Weinger.
[63] Vizel, Interview by Joseph Weinger.
[64] Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Trans. by Karen Fields. (New York: The Free Press, [1912] 1995), 34.
[65] Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation),” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essay, 85-126. Trans. by Ben Brewster. (New York: Monthly Review Press, [1970] 2001), 170.
[66] Gila Manoloson, Outside/Inside: A Fresh look at Tzniut, 2nd ed. (Southfield, MI: Targum Press, 2005), 25.
[67] Baila Vorhand, Free to Be Me, (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 2019), 28.
[68] Manoloson, Outside/Inside: A Fresh look at Tzniut, 21.
[69] Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 467.
[70] Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 128.
[71] Joan Wallach Scott, The Politics of the Veil. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 142.
[72] Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 123.
[73] Tavory (2016, 6) prefers the phrase “summoned into being” as an organizing metaphor for religious Jewish identification.
[74] Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, 228.
[75] Martin Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man, ed. and trans. by Maurice Friedman. (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 31.
[76] Despite the relative poverty of some Hasidim in the scope of American economic measurement, many Hasidic families do not consider themselves poor because (1) they are supported by community organizations and (2) they do not have the same expenses as the average American family (Vizel 2019).
[77] Beck, Pearl, Steven M. Cohen, Jacob B. Ukeles, and Ron Miller, “Geographic Profile,” in Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011, revised ed. (New York: UJA-Federation of New York, 2013), 28.
[78] Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Trans. by Richard Nice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 95.
[79] Baila Vorhand, Free to Be Me, (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 2019), 27.
[80] Vorhand, Free to Be Me, 31.
[81] Vorhand, 116.
[82] Elizabeth Chin, My Life with Things. Duke University Press. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016).