Has Modesty Gone Too Far? "Toe Sheitels" For Sale? An Advertisement Aimed at Orthodox Women Stirs Controversy

Appealing to Orthodox women who want to look great but conform to their communities’ standards for conservative dress, an advertisement circulating this week in Orthodox circles peddles “high quality” silicone toes that buyers can slip on over their own, allowing them to wear sandals without having their own feet be seen.

As reported by Jackie Hajdenberg for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency,

“Do you want to be fashionable but also tzniyusdyig?” the ad says, using a Yiddish form of the word for modest. “Do you want to look stylish but would never c’v [God forbid] wear open toes [sic] shoes?”

The ad resembled many real ones that circulate in the haredi Orthodox marketplace, where orders often must be placed by phone or in person because internet use is frowned upon and small-batch innovations that facilitate religious observance hit shelves frequently. But it also smacked of satire at a time when some Orthodox Jewish women are trying to push back against norms that dictate their attire, police their accessories and keep their faces out of some Orthodox publications.

Speculation about whether the mysterious ad is real or a prank — and what each might mean for Orthodox communities — has occupied a segment of the Orthodox world this week. Many are calling the product “toe sheitels” for the similar role they play to sheitels, or the wigs some married Orthodox women wear to cover their own hair in keeping with Jewish tradition.

“Some think it is real. Some think it is a joke,” Sharon Weiss-Greenberg, a longtime activist in Orthodox feminism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the toe sheitels. “I think it is a joke. But I think the fact that so many think that it isn’t is a problem — the fact that it is plausible.”

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Modest or Too Sexy? Los Angeles Jewish Community Debates Merits of Beautiful Wigs

There are a number of reasons women wear wigs: medical reasons, celebrities want sexy hair, and some Jewish Orthodox women want to remain modest. But what happens when the wigs they choose to wear are just too long, too wild, and too sexy? 

Israeli Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi of Kfar Chabad entered the debate in February by saying that long-haired wigs are not proper head coverings because they look too much like a woman's real hair, or better.

Rabbi Ashkenazi wrote that “Rabonim, and chiefly the Rebbe, preferred that women cover their hair with a wig and not with a tichel (head scarf) since the wig will cover the entire head along with the hair on the sides.” He added that it's obvious that this should be noticed as a ‘foreign’ covering and not like natural hair.

In his letter, which drew many comments, pro and con, he said that “long and wild wigs, even more so when they are made of real hair whose purpose is to look like real and natural hair, cannot be considered as a proper hair coverings by a wig.” He asked the administration of his seminary to only allow wigs that fall till the shoulders and not any longer.

Those are exactly the kind of wigs worn by Chava Tombosky in Los Angeles, who began wearing a wig after getting married, as is custom. She's a mother of three and a popular Jewish musician.

Most long wigs constructed with real hair cost more than a thousand dollars and many are designed to turn heads.

JN1, the global Jewish-interest news channel, joined the debate by showing examples of the wigs and interviewing Tombosky and Geula Newman, a Jewish head covering expert. 

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