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EveryHairstyle

Barber street or district, Israel

Mea Shearim

A Haredi neighbourhood of Jerusalem where payot, hats and the covered hair of married women mark daily life.

Mea Shearim, founded in 1874 as one of the first neighbourhoods outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, is home to Haredi, ultra-Orthodox, communities, many of them Hasidic. Its streets show how hair carries faith: men and boys with long payot, sidelocks curled or tucked behind the ears, and married women whose hair is covered with a wig, a scarf or a snood.

Sidelocks

Payot follow a verse in Leviticus forbidding men to round the corners of the head. In Mea Shearim many Hasidic men grow them long and curl them, while others keep them shorter and tuck them away. Boys keep payot from their upsherin at three, often with the rest of the head cropped very short. Styles of payot, along with hats and coats, can signal which Hasidic dynasty a family follows.

Covered hair

Married Orthodox women cover their hair as a matter of modesty. In Mea Shearim some wear a sheitel, a wig, while many in stricter communities consider wigs too close to natural hair and wear a tichel, a tied scarf, or a snood; some shave the hair beneath. Shops in the neighbourhood sell scarves, snoods and wigs. The strictness of local customs, posted on signs at the entrances, is sometimes a matter of public debate in Israel.

Hairstyles of Mea Shearim

PayotThe sidelocks of Haredi men and boysUpsherinFirst haircuts at the age of three

Still to be written: Head covering for Jewish women.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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