BLESSINGS BENEATH THE VEIL
THIS is part of what 2017 has looked like in Texas. Houston: Students at Cypress Ranch High School throw up a Nazi salute and chant, “Heil, Hilter!” during a class photo. Victoria: A man is charged with a hate crime after torching a mosque because he “fears Muslims.” Alice: St. Elizabeth Catholic Church is vandalized, three statues destroyed.
What drives these kinds of terrible acts? Hate and fear often are propelled by simple ignorance. Perhaps these wounds of divisiveness could be healed by getting to know the person who lives next door. Maybe then we could love our neighbor.
In Houston, these neighbors are Christian and Muslim, Jew and Sikh, Hindu and Baha’i, and almost anyone else you can imagine. Among those large faiths are sects identified by specific rites, ancient traditions and distinctive clothing.
For women of Abrahamic faiths, that often means being veiled. And that often leads to being seen as an “other.” They are told they shouldn’t cover their hair because it hides their beauty. They are seen as oppressed or raging religionists. They are told to get with the times.
I remember when Jews and Muslims and Catholics definitely were outsiders in the South. They were called all kinds of names. Being an adherent of these faiths almost guaranteed they’d never fill an elective office.
Houston women share faith that inspires them to cover up
They’d be blamed for all sorts of social ills. The prevailing culture thought it knew what “those people” were about and didn’t like it. But no one really asked them back then.
Now, as to covering the hair, I was able to ask. The answers were surprising, and the process was at once humbling and uplifting. Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God — Micah 6:8
Esty Zaklikofsky meets me at a coffee shop in Bellaire. We sit across a long, rough-hewn table. It looks like something monks might eat around.
She is 33 years old and looks like any other Houston mom whose house has been flooded by Hurricane Harvey: saddened at the loss, a little anxious at all the work ahead but glad to set that aside for a while. But there is one distinction that isn’t obvious at a glance. Her hair is hidden, veiled beneath a wig, or sheitel. She has just celebrated Rosh Hashanah.
Zaklikofsky is passionate about her faith. The history of Jewish custom springs from her with unvarnished adoration. “There are 613 Mitzvot in the Torah,” she said. “The kids call them ‘good deeds,’ but they really are divine commandments which offer us unique ways to forge a connection with God.
“One of the ways we do this is to walk humbly before God. So we cover our hair. Some women use a scarf or hat. Tzniyus is modesty. It’s not about suppressing beauty; it’s about channeling dignity. If we focus less on our outer appearance, we create space for our beautiful soul, our true identity to shine.
“I think women want to be recognized for who they really are, not just how they look. It’s a delicate balance to blend inner and outer beauty. Judaism’s value of modesty helps to facilitate this balance.”
Zaklikofsky is originally from West Hartford, Conn. Then she moved to Crown Heights in Brooklyn, N.Y. She was raised in the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement but rejects labels.
“It is important to avoid denominational divisions,” she said. “The Torah is not simply for the orthodox or the conservative or reformed congregation.”
Houston is now home. With her husband, Rabbi Yossi Zaklikofsky, she co-directs the Shul of Bellaire. Together they work to spread a “family message, where all Jews feel welcome. Everyone should learn and experience their heritage in a safe place, in a nonjudgmental environment.”
She teaches me a little Hebrew and some Yiddish. She explains the importance of prayer unburdened by distractions. At her synagogue, they use a partition between men and women during prayer, just like at Kotel, the Western Wall.
That takes me back to where I’d seen this before, to a place where Jewish and Muslim and Christian women all veiled themselves: Jerusalem. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. — Sign at the Garden Tomb
If you don’t run into pop-up security checkpoints, it takes about 15 minutes to walk from the Western Wall to Al-Aqsa mosque and on to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. On this path, partitioning is all around you.
At the wall, a physical partition divides Jewish women from men as they pray at the holy site. In the courtyards around the mosque, custom separates Muslim women from men as they study the Quran. Along the Via Dolorosa and within the church, many Christian women observe the ancient practice of veiling, even if they never do so in their day-to-day life.
These are sacred places that call for special acknowledgement. Because they are not part of the everyday world of chores and parenting and school assignments and job reports, we set them apart. We mark them as significant and build a partition around them.
The Arabic word for partition is “hijab.”
This is appropriate … so they may be known and not harassed. — 33:59 (Quran)
Sana Khalil is a 29-year-old stay-at-home mother of four. She sits on a sofa in her living room in west Houston. An infant daughter is on her lap, trying not to fall asleep. Her husband, Firas Abunabah, has extended hospitality in the form of a glass of orange juice. Another daughter, 9 years old, sits next to me, playing on an iPad.
Fully covering her hair and neck, Khalil is wearing a beautifully tied scarf. I am not a mahram, a close male relative, so even in her home, she practices hijab.
She tells me the head covering is about modesty. “Our modesty standards are … the easiest answer: It’s part of my religion.” But she explains it’s more nuanced than that.
“Even before Islam was founded, head coverings were seen as a sign denoting a free woman. If her head was uncovered, she was a slave. They had no money for a head scarf, or could not wear them in fields at work. So the lady covered her hair as a symbol that she should be respected. She is practicing modesty, yes, but also expressing her value as a human being, a thing greater than just the physical body.”
ForKhalil, practicing hijab is an element of identity, “like a passport. It is about belonging.”
She is a Chicago girl, born into a family of Palestinian-Americans. She moved from the Windy City to Amman, Jordan, when she started elementary school, then moved back to the U.S. in time to graduate high school in Texas.
When people here began to question her about the hijab, she found herself unable to fully justify it. “They would say, ‘God has made you. Why would you hide God’s creation?’ And I didn’t know how to explain it so they could understand.
“Muslim women — if they are young or even old, it is the same — they carry much on their shoulders. Everywhere we go, we are making a statement of our faith and being judged for how we behave and present ourselves.
“Then, I found a picture of Mary, and I showed them: ‘Look, what do you see?’ And then they saw: Mary was wearing the veil, too. So some of them understood more because of Mary, the mother of Jesus.” Mary treasured up all these things — Luke 2:19
Erin Vallagomesa has a small case with Madonna and Child embroidered on it. It looks like something you’d keep fancy reading glasses in. Her mother bought it in the Holy Land. I asked what happens when the delicate needlework gets worn out, and she laughed. “Oh, I have a bunch of these, just in case.”
Erin is a junior at the University of St. Thomas. She is studying business and wants to eventually earn an MBA. She’s 21 years old, a Catholic born in Baytown to parents who immigrated from the Philippines.
So why does she carry the case adorned with Mary and the baby Jesus? She keeps a veil in it. “I began wearing the veil after becoming almost overwhelmed by the reality of the Holy Eucharist. For me, it is an acknowledgement, a proclamation, that the Lord is Lord.
“Some women may veil as a sign of humility before God. But I see this as an external sign of inherent beauty: the inner self, which is more beautiful. It is not about suppressing anything. It’s just, well, hard to put into words. It’s transcendent. It’s a reminder that I must cultivate my true self. It’s an external expression of an internal disposition.”
Usually she is the only one practicing that form of expression. Many older Catholic women will wear veils to Mass, but Vallagomesa can count “on one hand, well, six if you count me” the number of her contemporaries who veil themselves. And, for her, that’s OK.
The popular use of a veil in church is, of course, at a wedding. “It is enough for me to know that this has meaning for me. If it matters to no one else, to me it brings to life the symbolism that Christ is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride.”
The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated. — Desmond Tutu
As Vallagomesa and I talked on her campus, two women left the Chapel of St. Basil and, crossing the quad, turned toward a parking lot, walking away from us. They were wearing the habit of the Dominican Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province. That habit includes a veil. In a time when women who express their faith by covering their hair run the risk of being called brainwashed, here are nuns, veiled, yet respected for their devotion and commitment to a life of faith, prayer and service. Their website says: “The Sisters wear a black veil with a thin white trimming as a sign of her renunciation to the world.”
Perhaps that is why Zaklikofsky, Khalil and Vallagomesa are different. Maybe that opens them to misunderstanding. They have not “renounced” the world. They live and work and play with neighbors and colleagues and friends who are as diverse as Houston itself. They do not cloister themselves with the likeminded.
Now I see that the partition is not so high that one cannot reach over it. If a woman veils her hair during Mass, or around men who are not close relatives, or around everyone in the world other than her husband, she still may open her heart or home and share with us. And, like all good neighbors, we will be blessed by the sharing and receiving. Our mistrust will be replaced with understanding; our fear, with love.
Khalil summed it up like this: “I won’t tell you to believe what I believe. I respect you and what you believe, and I expect the same from you. The world will be a better place if everyone will respect each other.”