Say No To Jewish Fashion Shows

Say No To Jewish Fashion Shows

By Gil Troy
The Jewish Week
May 3, 2007

Here’s a sermon we need to hear, but probably never will.

“My friends, last year’s Sisterhood Fashion Show fundraiser was lucrative. And we cherish our many congregants from the garment industry who generously help pay my salary. But sometimes what is fun, profitable and appropriate in business is inappropriate for a synagogue or school. We must cancel our fashion fundraiser.”

Alas, this spring, for Jewish causes and Israeli needs, the “Passion For Fashion” — as one JCC fashion show calls it — will rule. If you Google “fashion show” and “Jewish,” you will find 227,000 hits, highlighting hundreds of opportunities for Jews to shake their booties in the hippest threads, all for a good cause. But does anyone worry about what kind of role models these amateur fashion models sashaying down the catwalk might be? Does anyone care about the feelings of “uncool” grownups and kids who are never asked to strut their stuff?

Here, Orthodoxy and feminism meet. Traditional Judaism values modesty as respect for oneself and others. The feminist movement warns against objectifying women’s bodies, noting the pathological power relations between ogling men and parading women, let alone those women whose looks conform to society’s definition of beauty — and those whose do not.

I have encountered many angry Jewish day school graduates who felt left out of their fashion shows. Often they blame their institutions, or Judaism itself, for the feelings of inadequacy they experienced when excluded. Moreover, these celebrations of superficiality exacerbate North American Judaism’s overlooked class problem. From the way we celebrate bar mitzvahs to the way we dress on the high holidays, the “haves” rule. Many “have nots” feel left out.

Even if no one felt victimized, the educational and ideological failure remains troubling. Judaism cannot represent a moral alternative to modern America’s materialism, exhibitionism and excessive sexuality if our flagship institutions worship the latest trends and the cult of the body when trying to make a buck. Judaism need not be ascetic, but it should not be licentious. We need not reject modern society completely, but we cannot be enslaved to every fashion. We must offer our children, and ourselves, alternatives to modern American excess.

Jewish tradition is rigorous, not harsh; integrated, not fragmented; enveloping, not smothering, hoping to elevate and enlighten. Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, offers a punchy, remarkably relevant 1,800-year-old guide to “proper” living focused on seeking meaning, not gratifying impulses. Rabbi Akiva warns that “mockery and levity accustom a man to immorality,” a pertinent rebuke to America’s culture of one-liners laced with mindless trendiness, hipster cynicism and media skepticism, wherein we fail to serve as proper moral stewards while worshipping the senses of the Stewarts, Martha and Jon.

One hundred and fifty years ago, during another transition period of ethical uncertainty, Rabbi Israel Salanter triggered a “Musar” movement reviving the Ethics of the Fathers’ linking of faith with morality. When asked whether someone with only 15 minutes of spare time a day should study Torah or Musar, pietistic ethical text, the rabbi took the long view. “Study Musar,” he proposed, for the individual would soon learn to change his life and find more time for study and good works. Rejecting the false choice between being pious and being good, Rabbi Salanter demanded both.

Judaism, religion and striving to be a good person, cannot be booked at discrete moments on our BlackBerries. We need parents, teachers and rabbis ready to stretch, confront, challenge and grow with their charges. “A rabbi whom they don’t want to drive out of town is no rabbi,” Rabbi Salanter taught. “And a rabbi who lets himself be driven out is no man.”

We need great men and women to face today’s spiritual, ethical and ideological challenges. We need to start saying no and setting limits on ourselves and our children as part of an integrated strategy to raise good, moral people. We need to fashion new ethical statements and spring toward uplifting alternatives rather than simply mounting spring fashion shows. And we need to start delivering those lessons of Musar, of goodness, not only to the next generation, but to this generation of leaders and parents.

We are the ones who have hollowed out Judaism and made it into an empty shell. We have alienated so many by being too sterile, superficial, trendy or exclusive. We are the ones with the power to find salvation, starting to say “no” to many impulses as a way of ultimately saying “yes” to life, to a deeper, more satisfying, more inspiring mode of living — whether it’s fashionable or not.

Gil Troy is professor of history at McGill University and the author of “Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today.”