Happy Hanukkah — Cut the Chit Chat With Cousin Gertrude!
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Sam Kestenbaum December 28, 2016
It’s Hanukkah time, but don’t get carried away with the holiday spirit.
Fliers posted in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of New York City warn: amidst your Hanukkah parties, dreidel spinning and menorah lighting — don’t let the men and women mix. There should be no engaging in “unnecessary chatting,” “frivolous laughter,” or “playing games together.” This even includes socializing between brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law and cousins.
“The separation between men and women,” the posters read, “must be completely enforced.”
The concept of modesty, tzniut in Hebrew, is used, mostly in Orthodox circles, to describe the character trait of modesty and a group of Jewish laws relating to conduct, especially between the sexes. Some of the most visible observances of these customs are the hair covering and long skirts worn by Orthodox women and the separation of sexes during prayer.
This poster, found in Boro Park was also published in 2015 in The Weekly Link, a premier Orthodox magazine.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
