I tied one on. :)

Here's the latest trend in kisui rosh (head-coverings), apparently:



"#headbandnation at JTS,"




I copied these comments from Facebook:

Deborah Sacks Mintz Avi Killip someone needs to do a study on the trend of trad egal women wearing headbands

. . .

Liora Halperin What’s the story? Why are you all wearing headbands? 

. . .

 

Deborah Sacks Mintz Liora Halperin a wide spectrum of reasons...marriage, in lieu of a kippa, some combo of the two, another reason entirely. . .



My hair's too short for a headband, and I've afraid that the elastic would give me a headache, but last night at Rabbi Tucker's lecture at Hadar I did see one of the female Yeshivat Hadar fellows wearing a scarf tied in a similar fashion, so I thought I'd give it a try.
 

However, I'd have to continue to use a kippah for the weekday Shacharit (Morning Service), because a scarf wouldn't survive having head tefillin strapped under it--it would just fall off.  Been there, tried that.

Update

This scarf won't do--it comes untied and slides off too easily.  I'm trying some longer scarves, which work much better, but having the ends hang down my back to below the waistline does make me feel like a 70-year-old hippy.  :)  Oh, well, better late than never.  :) 

November 22, 2019 update

A scarf worn head-band style and:

~ Tefillin.  On Monday night, one of the Yeshivat Hadar students kindly showed me a better way to tie my scarf--first, put the scarf around the back of the head, then pull the ends around to the front (above the ears), then wrap one end around to the back, then wrap the other end over the first one, then tie both ends in back.  This makes the scarf look less flat, and also leaves a lot less of the scarf hanging down in back, which means it doesn't get in the way quite as much.  Even so, after four days of trying to put a scarf on after I'd finished putting on the head tefillin/shel rosh, I've given up trying to wear a scarf with tefillin--frankly, the effort is distracting me from the mitzvah of laying tefillin.  But I can wear a scarf when I'm davvenning (praying) any service for which tefillin are not worn, or for studying divrei kodesh (sacred texts).

~ Context.  If I'm the only woman in the room wearing a head-covering, wearing a scarf rather than a kippah just makes me look "holier than thou," in my opinion, so I'll stick to a kippah.

~ Denominational "marking."  Deborah may be convinced that the trend of traditional egalitarian women wearing headbands is restricted to trad egal women, but here's another comment from that same Facebook post:

Emily Goldberg Winer Hi tell me where all of these headbands are from please!! #headbandnation Maharat needs to know!

Emily is a student at Yeshivat Maharat.

So much for this style being for egalitarian women only.

The bottom line is this--If I want to cover my head with a garment that clearly identifies me as a non-Orthodox Jewish woman, I really have no other option than to wear a kippah.  Just about any other head-covering is worn by Orthodox women (of one segment of the Orthodox community or another) and leaves my denominational identity unclear.

See also my first post about Hadar, with a related link to a post about head-covering.