Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes
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Emmanuel Bloch
Abstract
Tsniut (modesty) is a very popular theme in contemporary Jewish religious discourse. But one significant novelty, however, lies in the recent apparition of popular halakhic guides that understand tsniut for the first time as a form of dress code for women. Until a few decades ago, no halakhic authority found it necessary to pen a book describing in painstaking detail the exact rules to which a Jewish observant woman should steadfastly adhere if she wants to dress modestly. However, as of today, tens of such books have been published, mostly in Hebrew and English, but also in other languages-such as French, Spanish, and Yiddish. In effect, we are witnesses, in a span of a few short years, to the creation of nothing short of a new halakhic genre, which so far has been insufficiently addressed by the scholars active in corresponding fields. This paper aims at partially filling this gap in the scholarly literature.
© 2018 by Academic Studies Press, Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Title
- Table of Contents
- From the Guest Editor
- ESSAYS
- Re-Presenting Judaic Law: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg’s Popular Guides to Halakha and Their Significance
- Halakhic Guidance for Soldiers: The Emergence of a New Corpus
- Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes
- From Ideology to Halakhah: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Modern Hebrew
- Preambles: An Insight into Rabbi Avraham Danzig’s Haye Adam
- The Medical Cosmology of Halakha: The Expert, the Physician, and the Sick Person on Shabbat in the Shulchan Aruch
- The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and Its Impact in Hungary and Beyond
- A Matter of Life and Death: The Halakhic Discussion of Suicide as a Philosophical Battleground
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Adam Afterman, “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2016
- Oded Porat, Sefer B’rit ha-Menuha (Book of Covenant of Serenity): Critical Edition and Prefaces [in Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Hotza’at ha-Kibbutz ha-me’uh ad, 2016
- Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds. Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017
- Sara Davidson, The December Project. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014
- Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Title
- Table of Contents
- From the Guest Editor
- ESSAYS
- Re-Presenting Judaic Law: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg’s Popular Guides to Halakha and Their Significance
- Halakhic Guidance for Soldiers: The Emergence of a New Corpus
- Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes
- From Ideology to Halakhah: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Modern Hebrew
- Preambles: An Insight into Rabbi Avraham Danzig’s Haye Adam
- The Medical Cosmology of Halakha: The Expert, the Physician, and the Sick Person on Shabbat in the Shulchan Aruch
- The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and Its Impact in Hungary and Beyond
- A Matter of Life and Death: The Halakhic Discussion of Suicide as a Philosophical Battleground
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Adam Afterman, “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2016
- Oded Porat, Sefer B’rit ha-Menuha (Book of Covenant of Serenity): Critical Edition and Prefaces [in Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Hotza’at ha-Kibbutz ha-me’uh ad, 2016
- Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds. Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017
- Sara Davidson, The December Project. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014
- Contributors
