I was in Jerusalem recently and saw the following sign advertised on a bus. I thought it was creative and cute, if a bit offensive...

According to Hamechadesh, Rav Yitzchal Zilbershtein, rav of Ramat Elchonon neighorhood of Bnei Braq, was asked the following question by a kalla teacher. 

Just the other day Rav Yitzchak Yosef spoke about sheitels being prohibited because the hair is avoda zara, coming from the Indian temples.

I am not sure why this has come up now after a long period of quiet on this issue. 

I am not sure what to say about this, so I present it for your consideration with no comment

The general psak among sefardim, at least in Eretz Yisrael, has been for the women to not wear wigs as hair coverings, but to wear tichels of various styles. Some do wear wigs, and I am sure it is supported by some rabbonim, but the general psak has been against wigs.

Rav Ofir Malka, a sefardi dayan and posek, has recently paskened in a shiur in Ashdod that a woman who gets a new wig should make the bracha of Shehecheyanu, made upon the joy of acquiring something new. This was surprising to the community and local rav, Rav Mashanya, stopped the shiur in protest.

When Rav Shlomo Ben Shimon, a Sefardic former Av Beis Din Hagadol was asked the same question, for confirmation, he scoffed and said a goy should make the bracha - a play on words of the hebrew word for a wig being "peah nochrit".

It seems to be a controversial psak.

The debate over what is considered a more halachically acceptable, or even just permitted, hair covering for women has been raging for decades. It is sharply debated especially in Israel where the culture is less formal and it is far more acceptable for women to wear tichels outside, even at work, than it is in countries like the USA and Europe, whereas in many places in the Diaspora women feel they have more of a need for the sheitel and the appearance of hair that it provides, so the issue is less at the forefront.

According to an "alon" (ie a parsha paper, of sorts), quoting from a new sefer being printed, Rav Chaim Kanievsky has paskened that a sheitel is [sometimes] better (ie more appropriate according to halacha) than a mitpachat, or tichel, for a woman to wear as a hair covering. Rav Kanievsky says it is better, or can be better, because the sheitel generally covers all the hair, whereas a tichel often does not. Rav Kanievsky qualifies that by saying that the sheitel must be obviously a wig in appearance, but if one looking at it cannot tell that it is a wig than it is prohibited. Rav Kanievsky adds that all the gedolei Lita followed this opinion and their wives wore sheitels.

 (so you have a blog quoting a website quoting an alon quoting a sefer quoting Rav Chaim Kanievsky. so, as always, don't base your actions and halachic decisions on a fifth hand quote on the Internet. If you have any halachic questions, speak to your rabbi rather than basing on anything quoted on the Internet)

I would only point out that it is well known that many of the gedolei Lita had wives who did not cover their hair at all. As well, maybe they felt they had to being in Chutz Laaretz and needing to look like hair, while had they lived in Eretz Yisrael at the time perhaps they would have worn other hair coverings.

The alon also quotes the sefer in the name of the Chazon Ish saying that a wig/sheitel is better than a tichel even if it is not so clearly obvious that it is a sheitel and it looks like real hair.
source: Kikar

Being that there is no big chiddush stated here, I am a bit surprised that this is newsworthy. While I personally did not know Rav Chaim Kanievsky's opinion, though his wife wore a sheitel, as does his daughter -so perhaps I assumed it - it seems like nobody knew his opinion on this matter until the sefer came out and revealed it. Has nobody ever asked him before?

According to some tzniyus pamphlet distributed in Bnei Braq and other Haredi areas (surely it will be coming to Bet Shemesh soon, if it hasn't already) that has taken the fight against wigs to another, yet more extreme level.

according to Kikar, the pamphlet describes how 37 avreichim in Kiryat Sefer all had the same dream on the same night in which they all saw Rachel Imeinu showing them that in the upcoming war all women wearing sheitels will be slaughtered. Tens more people around the country had this dream as well.

Further, the pamphlet says, in the past year the chief commander of ISIS instructed his soldiers how to differentiate between Jewish women and Muslim women, so as to be able to avoid killing Muslim women, to check the hair and if it is a wig she must be a Jewish woman and be slaughtered.

ok.

Besides for the extremist crazies cozying up with ISIS, I am not sure what they are trying to prove - that ISIS says the way to identify a Jewish woman is by her wig? That would mean that Jewish women wear wigs and it is normal! Just because ISIS identifies Jews like that and does not like it, means Jewish women should not wear wigs? Maybe Jewish women in ISIS-controlled territories should not wear wigs out of the danger to their lives presented by ISIS, but I do not see why the fact that ISIS wants to slaughter women with wigs should have any effect on what Jewish women wear.

Also, ISIS does not want to slaughter Muslims? Besides for the fact that ISIS has been almost completely defeated and wiped out, more than 99.9% of the people they have slaughtered have been Muslims, so I highly doubt this little factoid published by the tzniyus crazies has even a kernel of truth to it.

The police should open an investigation, if they have any investigators available among all the investigations into Netanyahu's affairs, into finding and arresting whoever published this drivel and the implicit threat to the Jewish sheitel-wearing women 

A community in Jerusalem - a community of extremists, it seems - has put up a notice in its shul, Ohel Yesharim, for the High Holidays letting people know that they will not be facilitating women in fulfilling their obligations if they cover their head with a wig rather than with a "head covering".
sources: Haredim10, Kikar

1. I presume "head covering" means tichel or snood or something like that. Technically the head is covered equally when in a wig, even if you believe a wig is immodest.

2. what obligations do women need to fulfill that they are preventing? The articles (linked above) assume it refers to shofar blowing, but that is not mentioned explicitly in the sign, and, more importantly, women are not obligated to hear the shofar. Unfortunately I cannot think of another example of what it might refer to.

3. My approach would be different. In at least 2 ways:
        1. I would not consider a person a sinner and beyond the pale for doing something that I thought was wrong, if they had other valid opinions to rely on. I might not agree, but I wouldn't consider them sinners.
         2. Especially on the High Holidays, when we are asking God to ignore our sins or forgive them and continue to include us within His community of the Jewish people, my approach would to try to be more inclusive than exclusive.

4. I guess they have moved on from the smartphones as the focus of these types of exclusions.

everything you wanted to know, or didn't want to know, about Orthodox wigs and styles...

Orthodox Wig World from Jewish Daily Forward on Vimeo.

Sony's Play For Elderly Tech Fans: A Wearable Smart Wig?

  -- Gizmodo

This is just weird..

Will they make them in human hair sheitels? Can someone wear these to shul on Shabbos?

This is a great story. A guy named Luis Aparicio, or so he claims, goes into a bank and robs it of $47,000. Upon trying to make his escape with a hostage, the police arrive. He grabs the hostage by the hair. She wiggles out of her wig leaving Aparicio standing there dumbfounded holding a wig. He tries to run, the police shoot and injure him and he goes to jail.

From CBS on the Bank Robbery that was foiled by a wig:

It was a hair’s breadth escape by a woman from a bank robbery suspect in northern New Jersey last week.
An FBI report filed Monday in the criminal complaint against Luis Aparicio claims he tried to rob a Chase Bank branch in Rutherford last Thursday and take a woman hostage, only to be foiled by her wig.
The report said Aparicio entered the bank at about 2 p.m. and held what looked like a gun to the neck of a customer service representative.
“I need the money. Don’t try anything stupid, I know how you operate, just give me all the money,” Aparicio said, according to the report.
As the customer service representative and a manager began to give him about $47,000 from a vault, Aparicio heard sirens, grabbed the woman and said, “You’re coming with me,” according to the report.
Police had arrived by the time Aparicio led her out of the bank, the report said. As he tried to grab her by the hair, she wriggled out of the wig and ran away. Aparicio was then shot and injured by police.
Aparicio, of North Bergen, appeared in federal court in Newark on Monday. He is jailed pending a bail hearing.
The federal public defender representing Aparicio didn’t immediately return a phone message Monday.

1. Luis Aparicio is the name of a Hall of Fame retired baseball player who played with a few teams including the Chicago White Sox. I don't know if this is him or not, but if it is he probably should not be robbing banks at the ripe age of 77. It is rare that a 77 year old would be able to outrun police.

2. The lady was wearing a wig, and was quick enough to realize she could wiggle out of it and get away from him. Not that it matters for the story, but I wonder if this was a religious Jewish woman or if it was someone wearing a wig for other reasons.

With many drug smugglers and mules being caught recently, the risk of getting caught has become very high. That means it is time to stop smuggling drugs, at for those who are averse to such levels of risk, and find something else to carry over the borders.

The latest catch was hair. That's right, someone was smuggling hair.

Ladaat reports that the latest smuggling scheme to be caught was a Haredi guy coming in from Sao Paolo, Brazil. As the customs agents had him open his suitcase, they were surprised to find it full of hair. They opened up his second suitcase, and it too was full of hair. The guy was smuggling 10kg of hair, to be used to make sheitels in Israel.

I  wonder if they can train dogs to sniff for things like hair or anything else people might smuggle in..

This is an incident I would have liked to witness. It seems to be pretty amusing, though I am sure it was very troubling, and distressing, for the woman involved.

A woman was walking in Jerusalem, and the strong winds blew the sheitel right off her head (I always say thumbtacks would work better than just those clips they use).

That alone is every womans nightmare in bad weather - either the head covering blowing off, or the skirt blowing up Marilyn Monroe style... I once, many years ago saw an old woman getting on the bus in a storm and her sheitel fell off. Wasnt such a big deal - she was embarrassed for a moment and then everyone went on their merry way.

If that was not bad enough, the issue was compounded when one of the Mea Shearim thugs saw it happen, he ran over and grabbed her sheitel. Instead of returning it to her like a nice guy trying to help her get her head covered as quickly as possible, he ran away with it calling her a shiktza, saying the rabbonim said wigs are prohibited.


Bechadrei reports that a bunch of people tried to chase the thug down, including somebody on a hatzolah moped and some yeshiva boys. Eventually, the thug threw the sheitel aside and disappeared.

She must have run home in her embarrassment, because by the time the sheitel was recovered she was nowhere to be found.

As I said, thumbtacks work best, and would prevent problems like this from happening.

I am not going to analyze this any more. In my opinion we are now beating a dead horse, there has been so much said about it already, I dont know that there is anything left to be said. I do feel obligated to publish the latest video, of R' Hoffman of VIN interviewing Georgie, the sheitl macher of Heidi and Mendy fame (this must be great for her business right now!), and will do so without adding additional commentary: