The two-part resolution, however, met up with Lord,” I prefer to see these two moments in modem unanticipated opposition or “heat,” as one eyewitness Jewish history as an attempt, though flawed, to situate delicately phrased it. Some UOJCA delegates, it seemed, dress in relation to the moral aesthetics of Jewish daily had “declared indignantly that a church [sic] could not life. They tell us something about the way an earlier prescribe women’s styles.” Others were “equally as generation of Jews attempted to order their everyday positive that the question of women’s styles does lie lives, both within and without the sanctuary and the within its jurisdiction.” Although the latter camp carried lecture hall, while also suggesting something of the way the day, paving the way for the UOJCA to expand its we might define ourselves today. purview from maintaining kashruth standards to keeping With its own complex algorithms of style, Jewish up appearances, the debate touched on one of the most culture, I believe, seeks to endow all of our actions, even pressing issues of the modem Jewish experience: the the most quotidian, with profound value and meaning. As entangled relationship between the individual and the one writer reminds us, drawing on words as timely today, community. Blurring the lines between public and in 1998, as they were when first published way back in private, sacred and profane, supporters of the UOJCA 1918, when we get dressed, we are, in effect, “treading resolution sought to make clear that dress is no private holy ground.” + matter, subject only to personal fancy and the idiosyncra- sies of style and taste, but a public construct, bound up with the moral order. Its opponents, however, were not quite so sure. They preferred to leave sartorial choice to the individual rather than to the community.

Finding Holiness In Our Closets As news of the embattled resolution made its way from the corridors of the convention to the world-at-large, the The jewelry of jewry New York Times picked up on the story. Focusing on the Vanmsa odts unusual alliance between the Catholic Church and the Jews, between the “daughters of the church and the My interest in Lion of Judah pins began in a mispercep- daughters of Zion,” it editorialized: Powerful forces are tion. I was teaching my first Federation Women’s Divi- I in clash when the Catholic Church and the orthodox sion class. Arriving early, hoped to get a feel for my students before class began by looking for any signs- synagogue [sic] unite against present styles in women’s clothes. Victory, prophesied the paper, “promises to rest visual or verbal-that would clue me in. ultimately, though not permanently, with the churches. The first woman who came in carried a briefcase; she What their direct efforts might not accomplish may be dressed in an elegant black suit and silk blouse, and on achieved through the vicissitudes of the mode,” the her lapel was a golden pin: a lion in profile walking on its hind legs, its paws raised up if dancing the samba. changing face of Fashion. After all, “when Fashion as speaks, economic forces, social forces, psychological In the lion’s eye was a sparkling gem. forces, emancipations, progress and all the rest mean nothing. The lure Of The Lion In the end, the Times’ assessment of the situation Were I conducting in-depth anthropological field work in proved correct: skirt lengths came tumbling down not the Women’s Division of UJA (and not just scouting out because of the UOJCA’s efforts to legislate style but my class), and had turned to this particular woman as an because Paris so “decreed.” And yet, this episode and the informant, I might have wondered: “Why a lion? What one that preceded it, in 1918, are worth revisiting. does a lion represent to you? Do you wear a lion because Today, crusades against “hatless Hebrews” and short- it represents power or courage; are these traits that skirted daughters of Israel can easily be dismissed as identify you? Or are power or courage traits you lack, ill-conceived, insensitive and coercive instances of and by wearing the lion as a symbol, your fortify yourself intrusiveness, as unwarranted curbs on individual expres- in its borrowed powers? And how do you see the lion in sion. I would like to essay an alternative and arguably Jewish terms?” Of course, knowing that cigars can be less gloomy perspective. Writing in my dual capacity as cigars, I knew the lion pin might have just caught this an historian and as one who,. to quote Henrietta Szold, ...... -...... **...... *...... freely confesses to being a “mighty shopper before the VANESSA OCHS Is a CLAL Senior Teaching Fellow and a Sh’ma Contrlbut- ing Editor.

Sh’ma 281547 3 woman’s eye at Bergdorf‘s accessory counter, and, once A BIG GIVER?” Worse yet, to wear a sign which again, this morning as she scanned her jewelry box for boasted the precise pricetag of one’s major gift? These some dazzle to brighten a dark lapel. lions did not represent multiples of chi ($18) I learned. Then a second woman walked in. She was more The zahav (gold) Lion of Judah identifies a giver of casually dressed, in a grey chenille sweater and charcoal $50,000 minimum, the emerald $25,000 minimum, the wool pants. I was shocked by what I saw pinned over her sapphire $18,000 minimum, the ruby $10,000 minimum, heart: Not only another lion, but the exact same lion as and the plain Lion of Judah, $5000 minimum. the first woman, the same samba paws, the same spar- Women wearing the pins to Federation Women’s kling eye. What an incredible coincidence, I thought, two Divisions social, educational and fundraising gatherings women dressed in different registers, wearing exactly the and missions are themselves called “Lions of Judah. ” (A same pin. But the two women did not react as people tend New Jersey Jewish News-MetroWest newspaper article to when they notice someone else wearing the same announced: “Lions of Judah off to roaring start/Lion of clothes or accessories. They did not seem shocked, Judah women raised a record $1.4 million, representing worried or humiliated that the same accessory “looked a 7.3 percent card-for-card increase, at the Lion of Judah better.” As a matter of fact, they took no notice. Major Gifts Event in support of the UJA of MetroWest’s A third woman came in, another lion pin on her lapel; 1998 women’s campaign.”) The women are further and then 15 more women, most wearing the same pin. designated by the stone they wear: you are a Ruby Lion You did not have to be the Einstein of material culture to of Judah, for instance, or if this is your first year of conclude that this pin was not being worn as jewelry giving, you are called a new Lion of Judah. And you alone, but as some symbol or insignia of affiliation, like don’t have to be Jewish. I am told that Governor Christie a camp T-shirt or a Veterans of Foreign Wars cap. Whitman is a Lion of Judah, too.

Pin Language What Are My Badges Of Pride? Acknowledging these lions must have special meanings of It has become customary among contemporary ethnogra- pride or identity in this den, I noticed as I taught, that phers to reflect upon how your own identity shapes the while the lions looked alike to me at first, they were not. way you consider someone else’s, because who you are Different colored gems sparkled in the eyes: diamonds, inevitably coiors your perspective. And so I perform the emeralds, sapphires, rubies. Knowing a little about the ritual (as it is called) of “situating” myself As an comparative worth of gems and the symbolic use of academic, I could never afford to be a Lion of Judah year diverse gems to show status, I began to pull it all to- after year, even in the most humble of dens. When I gether. Wearing a lion with a certain gem probably wrote a $250 check out to Hadassuh to become a lifetime signified one’s “level of giving,” the amount one pledged member, my hand shook, and even then, I knew my to the UJA Women’s Division campaign each year. one-time payment was a bargain price for a lifetime I would later learn that this lion, rather, this “Lion of subscription to Hadassah’s magazine. Judah” as it was called, was worn as a kind of, sacred But I also thought about badges of pride and identity object, standing for and holding vigil over one’s most that I display just as boldly as the Lions of Judah. At sacred commitments, and goading one to act in sacred academic conferences, I am very glad to wear the exact ways and socialize in certain sacred circles. Although the same ID pin everyone else wears. I am proud that under tradition of wearing such a pin is no more than 15 years my name are my academic affiliations, because they say old (it was created in Miami), it had already acquired something about who my colleagues are and what I have some of the weight of more ancient, established tradi- accomplished. When I am at the National Havurah tions. There are women who wear it every day, just as Committee Swnmer Institutes, I am delighted to pay $15 the tallit is worn, and some who feel that when a woman to the sclnolarship fund so I can wear the same NHC puts on a Lion of Judah pin, it is appropriate for her to T-shirt as everyone else, and with a pride in my longev- say a blessing, to praise God for being worthy of the ity and commitment, I wear the many different NHC honor of making such an intense commitment to Judaism T-shirts I have accumulated over the past summers. and to Jews everywhere. But I did not see this right off. At synagogue one Shabbat, an acquaintance told me a My first reaction to these pins was not enthusiastic. I story which helped me better understand the Lion of knew my Maimonides: the second most pious form of Judah. “Leslie” had been part of a UJA Women’s giving was tzedakah given anonymously. Was it Mission to Israel in the summer. Most other women on Maimonidean in spirit to wear a sign which said, “I AM the trip were already Lions of Judah, and had pins to

4 Sh‘ma 281547 show. Leslie loved lions and loved how the pin (Rabbi Irwin Kula has proposed that women who wear looked-she felt that as a mother and as a Jew, she often Lion of Judah pins say a berakhah, a blessing before they needed to draw upon the strength of a lion. What’s more, put on their pins: “Ban& ata...oter yisrael b’tif’arah, she loved the way her UJA region Merpersonalized Blessed are You our God, Sovereign of the World, who their pin with the addition of a Jewish star and the crowns our people Israel with beauty.” He has taught: symbol for women. Needing a lion’s strength, being a “When your children see you reciting this blessing over secure Jew and being a proud woman-this was who she your Lion of Judah pin, they will surely ask, ‘Why is this was all rolled into one. She wanted the pin badly. pin different from all other pieces of jewelry?’ And you And there was something else: she had been in an can tell them: ‘It reminds me that I love all Jews, care for airport earlief that year waiting for her flight, when she them and use my money to help Jews everywhere. ’”) + saw two women who seemed to be strangers starting up a conversation when they noticed each other wearing Lion of Judah pins. How good it would feel to have that instant connection. When it came time for the caucus at the end of the mission, when people made their pledges, Leslie was torn: what she had seen in Israel had moved her and she felt obligated to help in some way. She doubted she could afford to remain a Lion of Judah for more than a year et in (it’s an annual, not a one-the commitment). The cost of the commitment frightened her. But, she said, “I knew I had to do it. ” American culture tells us that society has a moral “Fab- ric”. We try on ideas for “size”, we can be “stripped” of Sacred Accessories our identity, and “clothes make the man”. Only recently Leslie, like other Lions of Judah with whom I have have I begun to fully appreciate the Torah of clothing and how alive that Torah is in all of lives regardless of spoken, is well aware that the pins can be seen as our far-from-subtle indications of financial wealth. But how “religious” we may be. The process began in lectures and classes that I gave past Fall. I often ask consider this: among all the material indications of our this diverse wealths that we sport: badges, college the people with whom I study, to recall powerful memo- sweatshirts, cars, good addresses, does the Lion of Judah ries of past Rosh Hashanahs as a way to begin the not represent a most admirable way in which wealth is process of creating meaningful ones for the present. It transformed into sacred deed? seems that no matter where I am, from California to Florida, the topic of fur coats always comes up, fur coats as a symbol of the emptiness and lack of spirituality which so typifies the Judaism of our parents and grand- parents generations. How, we ask, could they have been so shallow? How could they have been so perversely materialistic? How could they sit in those coats and think that had anything to do with Rosh Hashanah? If this is what going to the synagogue is really about, is it any wonder that we are running away?

Real World Spirituality And yet, we are told that “even if they were not proph- ets, our mothers and grandmothers were at least the daughters of prophets”. Perhaps any n@zhzg (custom) so widely practiced and recognized should be more closely considered. Perhaps our mothers and grandmothers instinctively felt a deep comection between fashion and ...... *..... RABBI BRAD HIRSCHFIELDIs Associate Director for ProfesslonalEducatlon at CLAL and a Sh’ma Contrlbutlng Edltor.

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