Let’s Get More Familiar with Jewish Fashion

• Jewish Clothing: Kippah, Tallit, and TefillinThe Clothing of Jewish Prayer Clothing has long played an important role in Judaism, reflecting religious identification, social status, emotional state and even the Jews’ relation with the outside world. The old rabbis taught that maintaining their distinctive dress in Egypt was one of the reasons the Jews deserved to be rescued from servitude.

• Unique Jewish Garments TodayWhile synagogue services, Jewish men traditionally don prayer shawls and cover their heads with kippot, practices that some liberal Jewish women have adopted as well.While most Jews dress similarly to non-Jews when outside synagogue, many Orthodox Jews are recognizable by their characteristic garments worn for reasons of ritual, tradition or modesty. Orthodox (and some non-Orthodox) men cover their heads with kippot, and some cover these with black hats or a shtreimel, a type of fur hat.

More stringently Orthodox men usually wear black suits, and many Hasidic men wear suits that are reminiscent of the style Polish nobility wore in the 18th century when Hasidic Judaism

began.Many Orthodox men also wear a tzitzit which is a four-pointed garment with fringes on the corners, underneath their shirt —sometimes the fringes hang out from the shirt, but sometimes

they are not visible.Many Orthodox women avoid pants and instead stick to dresses and skirts. Moreover, Orthodox women generally wear modest clothes that cover much of their bodies, although how much is

covered varies dramatically from community to community.In some ultra-Orthodox communities, women are being

discouraged from wearing bright, attention-getting colors. Once they are married, most Orthodox women cover their hair,

whether with a hat, wig or scarf.