How I Learned What Not to Wear as an Orthodox Woman

I was busy listening to Let Love Rule in my bedroom in the Omaha suburbs when my mother called us for dinner and proclaimed a spiritual quest. We’d already been Reform. Then we’d become Conservative. Apparently, she announced, this was no longer enough for our family. Here, in our house, we would be Orthodox. We wouldn’t have a shul, a rabbi, a community, or friends. But we would dress the part.

“You know, we have a history of doing what’s not ‘fashionable,’” she said proudly. But really, she had a history of social arson, burning bridges at the slightest provocation. We’d lost friends and family to both of my parents’ incendiary insecurities, and my mother’s new edicts were simply the latest pyrotechnic attempt to distance herself from parents who never validated her. Becoming Orthodox in Omaha suited her craving for both virtue and rebellion.

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