Shtrayml An Ethnographic Tale of Law and Ritualization

Hasidic fur hats come in different styles, most prevalently spodik, kolpik, and shtrayml (pl: shtraymln, shtraymlekh; Figs. 1–3). The regal-looking headwear is worn by married men, and is reserved for the sabbath, festivals, and other signifi-cant days such as the wedding of a son or daughter. As cultural markers of identity, groups of hasidim have adopted particular types of headwear that distinguish individual communities. In broad strokes it can be said that hasidic groups that trace their roots to Poland sport the taller, narrower, and darker spodik, made from pieces of black or dyed-black animal fur. Hasidic groups that originate in Ukraine, Galicia, Hungary, or Romania don the shorter, wider, and browner shtrayml that is traditionally made from animal tails. The kolpik, a lighter coloured version of the spodik, is worn by some hasidic masters on noteworthy non-festival days, such as the commemoration of the death of a saintly ancestor. In some hasidic courts, kolpiks are donned by sons of hasidic masters every sabbath before they are married. Lubavitcher hasidim are exceptions in the hasidic panorama: since the mid-twentieth century the fedora has replaced bushy furs.¹

Shtrayml fashions have changed over the last century. The bushy, dishevelled shtrayml of old has made way for the meticulously groomed shtraymlekh that are

Figure 1.

Rabbi Yitshak Ya’akov Rabinovitch, hasidic master of Dinov, wearing a shtrayml. Dinev (@DinevNews), 28 October 2015, Twitter website, visited 27 November 2019

Figure 2.

Rabbi Ya’akov Aryeh Alter, hasidic master of Ger, wearing a spodik. Bnei Brak, 10 June 2009.

Reproduced by courtesy of the Kimelman family

now in vogue. Furthermore, shtraymlekh used to be around 10 to 15 centimetres high, whereas nowadays they reach 25 to 30 centimetres (Figs. 4, 5).²

Using extant legal documents as a point of departure, this chapter will track the overlapping stages of shtrayml development: functional item of clothing, indicator of social status, marker of communal affiliation, and ritual vestment.³ This is a tale (pun intended) of sartorial sanctification, and from a broader perspective, an ethnographic account of law, ritualization, and the evolution of hasidic identity.

Figure 3.

Rabbi Nahum Dov Brayer, hasidic master of Boyan, wearing a kolpik. Monsey, 12 November 2017. ‘Harabi ḥavash “kolpik” veyarah et even hapinah le “kloyz” bemonsey’, Behadrei Haredim website, visited 5 March 2019

Functionality

The historical circumstances that led to the advent of Jewish fur headwear are unclear. According to one approach, the furs are distinctly Jewish clothing items, perhaps forced upon Jews as marks of shame. One narrative describes the shtrayml as an antisemitic ploy by a Polish king who decreed that married Jewish men must affix animal tails to their heads on the sabbath. The wives, seeing their husbands with the animal tails, would find them despicable. With time, the decree lost its force and the original reason faded, while the tails became a cap of honour that was donned by Jews on special occasions.

Figure 4.

Rabbi Ya’akov Yitshak Twersky of Makarov (d. 1892). Postcard. NLI Schwad 02 10 54. Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, National Library of Israel, Abraham Schwadron Collection

Versions of this socio-legal narrative were recounted by the early scholar of hasidism Ahron Marcus (1843–1916), by Nobel prize laureate for literature S. Y. Agnon (1888–1970), by the hasidic master Rabbi Yekutiel Judah Halberstam of Klausenburg (1905–94), and others.⁴ Agnon identified the Polish king as Augustus II the Strong (1670–1733)—a ruler not renowned for antisemitism, who employed Yissakhar Berend Lehmann (1661–1730) as his court Jew.⁵ One writer backdated the decree by identifying the Polish king as Zygmunt I the Old (1467–1548)—an unlikely identification, given that Zygmunt was not particularly antagonistic to the Jews of his realm.⁶ Agnon acknowledged that, even before the alleged decree, Polish Jews and non-Jews wore fur hats during winter...