Burkhas in Beverly Hills

It's a sunny day here in Southern California and I just saw a woman walking down the street in Beverly Hills covered head to toe in black, the only part of her showing: her eyes. She was even wearing gloves. It was obvious that she was Muslim woman wearing the traditional garb that you see in movies and read about in the news but rarely see yourself.

It gave me a bit of a shock. I couldn't help staring and wondering about the woman underneath all that black cloth. About what makes her choose to wear it - or if she even was the one to make the choice to begin with.

And I couldn't help thinking, "For all that I complain about misogyny in the Orthodox Jewish community, these Muslim women have it so much worse."

It isn't very fashionable in the frum community to sympathize with Muslims and believe me, I have no sympathy for those of them who are evil or are terrorists, but I can't help feeling sorry for their women. They are treated worse than dirt in many (if not all) Muslim countries.

It makes me grateful that I'm a Jew. Yes, there are problems in the frum world with how women are treated and, yes, I do write this blog anonymously for fear of what it could do to my "reputation" in the frum community, but those things seem trivial next to the fears that so many Muslim women live with all their lives.

Now there are some women who need a serious dose of feminism.

Checking out "Bubby's Burkha"

When I spoke previously about tzniut, (referring to the Orthodox Jewish dress code) I mentioned that I didn't find the dress code degrading or chauvinistic because I believe that it comes from G-d directly and I don't question G-d (it's the community attitudes, instead, that I tend to question.) You can see that post here.

Now, however, we've got Jewish women in Israel wearing burkhas, and that's definitely not coming from G-d. (For the full article, click here.)

Apparently some woman named "Bruria Keren," who considers herself a "Rabbanit," has decided to tell a bunch of Jewish women who look to her for guidance that they should wear burkhas whenever they leave their homes for reasons of modesty. That way, men won't look at them.

I'm convinced that this "Bruria" must not "have all the lights on upstairs." No sane Jewish woman would turn to Islam for fashion tips or, more specifically in this case, religion tips. We've got 613 commandments in the Torah, which break down into much more than 613 laws in halacha (Jewish law) and these women are looking for more?

Just off the top of my head I can think of two of the 613 commandments that this new trend of "Bruria's" violates:

1) "Like the practice of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelled, you shall not do, and like the practice of the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you, you shall not do, and you shall not follow their statutes." (Leviticus, 18:3)

2) "Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it." (Deuteronomy, 13:1)

#1 commands us not to follow any of the practices of non-Jewish nations, such as wearing burkhas.

#2 commands us to follow G-d's commandments as He tells us to, and we're not supposed to add or subtract from His commandments according to what we feel is better. You can't one-up G-d; once you start being more strict than G-d, you've stopped serving Him. He never asked us to be more strict than Him; in fact, He specifically tells us not to be. If He wanted us to wear burkhas, He would have told us about it.

These women have got a bee in their burkhas about something though I'm not quite sure what that is. Why are these women so desperate to hide from men? I think that there's something more disturbing than just Jewish women wearing burkhas going on here...

Thanks to Seraphic Secret for bringing this article to my attention.