The Jewfro

by Michelle Bayefsky

When asked to estimate how many Jewish girls she knew that owned a hair straightener, Ramaz sophomore Ilana Schulder responded, “Everyone.” The straightener is a wondrous invention that flattens and smoothes puffy and frizzy hair that, for many Jewish girls, takes on a life of its own right out of the shower. Is this a problem? Is hair straightening an addiction that is bad for the Jewish persona?
Back in the 1960s girls of all races and religions used clothing irons and ironing boards to straighten their hair — despite the frequency of burning catastrophes. Today the technology is more advanced but the idea is the same: turn frizzy and unmanageable hair into something lustrous and low-maintenance. The very latest technology — known as straightening

—also comes with a steep price, around $750, for a treatment that lasts from six to nine months. The process entails six long hours of chemical and heat treatment.
Nevertheless enthusiasts in the Jewish community abound. Schulder explained that once your hair is straight, “you don’t have to worry about it during the course of the day.”
What is this natural Jewish hair? A 2005 New York Times article refers to “jair” — “Jewish hair — dark, thick hair that’s been obviously straightened.” And Israeli Beverly Hills stylist Yuki Sharoni is famous for fixing what he called Jewish actor-comedian Adam Sandler’s “Brillo pad of hair.” In a September 2005 interview with The Forward, Sharoni said, “When I first came here they hadn’t figured out how to deal with Jewish hair.”
Dr. Sander Gilman is a psychologist, author of “The Jew’s Body” and an expert on Jewish self-perception. He is not convinced that there is such a thing as Jewish hair. However, Gilman admits that the same view has not been shared by notorious anti-Semites. Nazi war criminal Julius Streicher published a children’s story called “How to Tell a Jew.” In it he claimed that Jewish “hair is usually dark and often curly.” A Jewish man in Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is described as having “greasy ringlets.”
Although these stereotypes emanate from anti-Semitism there is no denying that many Jews have brown, curly, even unruly hair and frequently a straightener to go along with it. Gilman does not see hair straightening as an identity problem for Jewish teenagers. “It strikes me as a minor alteration,” said Gilman. “Given the massive cultural traditions surrounding hair remember the old adage: this too will pass — as you can see by looking at the hair styles of your parents.”
The fad does not seem to be unique to Jewish girls. “My friends who are not Jewish have straighteners and use them on a regular basis, like every day,” said Heschel High School sophomore Rachel Fell. Rachel has dark, wavy hair and agrees that straightening is time-consuming and saves it for special occasions. Straightening hair does not appear to indicate a penchant for assimilation, but rather a style popular with Jews and non-Jews.
Although Jews and African-Americans have idealized straight as opposed to curly hair, today’s styles are more likely to mark class rather than race, according to Gilman. Considering the expense of Japanese straightening and even the irons themselves (which can reach $200) perhaps straight hair is a class symbol similar to cars or houses.
Hairstyles sported by Jews and non-Jews are historically for males as well as females. For example, in the late 19th century the Assyrian beard style – a long, flat and spade-shaped beard – was considered Jewish.
However today’s American trend of straightening hair seems to primarily affect girls. “I don’t want to have messy hair, but I don’t particularly care about the style,” said Alec Goldberg, a sophomore at Ramaz. Goldberg said he never considered straightening his own curly hair, but he has a European friend that does. American males “don’t want to go overboard.”
On the popular television program, “The OC,” the character Seth once kvelled his “Jew-fro benefits from summer weather.” For the rest of us, our CHIs (ceramic hair irons) will continue to have pride of place at least until straight hair goes out of style. n
Michelle Bayefsky is a sophomore at Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization