ORTHODOX JEWS Women fear wigs are not allowed under tenet

An expert said Hindus are not idol worshippers.
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PHILADELPHIA -- Jodi Goldman checked, and hers is fine. Gayle Slursberg and Chana Leah Oshinsky have shelved theirs for now, however, and are wearing synthetic substitutes to be safe.
Tens of thousands of Orthodox Jewish women around the world caught in a sudden crisis of confidence -- about their wigs.
The Orthodox code of modesty requires married women to cover their hair in public, and many do so with human-hair wigs that can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
In mid-May, a leading Israeli rabbi threw the Orthodox world into distress by banning women from using wigs made of hair from India, pending further investigation. Though Orthodox wig-makers prize Indian hair for its rich texture, the concern is that some of the hair may have been cut off as an offering to Hindu gods -- which would make it idolatrous and anathema under Jewish law.
From Jerusalem to Jenkintown, Pa., Orthodox women have appealed to their rabbis or wig suppliers for guidance, hurried to find "kosher" wigs, or have begun wearing only scarves and hair coverings called snoods. Lists of approved wig brands and suppliers were quickly posted on the Internet.
Yaffa Wigs in Brooklyn, N.Y., one of the largest suppliers, has been "inundated with calls" and has sold out its synthetic alternatives, said manager Leah Schwartzberg. Only six of Yaffa's 50 styles of human-hair wigs are in question, she said, "but everybody wants synthetics" to be safe, and retailers "are begging us" for them.
Underscoring the anxiety, Orthodox Hasidic crowds in Israel and Brooklyn set piles of suspected India hair wigs ablaze, following the biblical injunction to destroy idolatrous objects.
"People are just getting a little hysterical" with the bonfires, said Slursberg, 46, of Rhawnhurst, Pa. "Maybe they think they're making a statement."
Violation of tenet
The fear among Orthodox Jews is that they have unknowingly violated a central tenet of Jewish law, according to Rabbi Dov Brisman, head of Philadelphia's rabbinical court.
Once something is used for an idolatrous or polytheistic sacrifice, Brisman said, a rabbinic principle holds that Jews, as monotheists, "are always forbidden to have benefit from it. If the hair was a gift for the [Hindu] gods, it fits that category."
Brisman said he and his colleagues have gotten scores of worried calls from congregants. He tells them that most wigs, known as "sheitels, that are sold in this country "are not problematic," and that if one owns a questionable one, "just put it on hold" pending a final ruling.
Jodi Goldman, 32, of Rhawnhurst, feels bad for women who have spent as much as $2,000 for a tainted wig. But if there is a chance it "would be poisonous for your soul," she said, "why would you want $2,000 poison?"
Rabbinic authorities from Israel and the United States have been dispatched to India to follow up on the preliminary ruling by Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv. Their focus is Tirupati, a city in southern India that is one of the major sources of human hair from India.
Millions of Hindus visit the Venkateswara temple there every year, with many female pilgrims having their hair shorn in a ritualized gesture. The rabbis emphasize that obtaining hair from idolators is not a problem as long as it was not offered as part of an idolatrous rite.
"This touches on fundamental articles of our faith," said Rabbi Basil Herring, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America. "We believe in one transcendent God and have to be sure we do not facilitate worship of other gods."
K.L. Seshagiri Rao, editor of The Encyclopedia of Hinduism, respects the Jewish sensitivities but finds them misguided.
The Tirupati pilgrims cut off their hair as a spiritual offering of "something dear to them," Rao said, but it is cut by barbers outside the temple and left there, not used in a ceremony.
Rao, a former Harvard University religion professor, also disputed that Hinduism is polytheistic or idolatrous. Hindus believe in one infinite deity "that has many forms," he said. Also, "when we worship, we are not talking to the image before us but to the one god."