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Continuing in the path of starting controversial topics, I’d like to know your opinion on Orthodox Jews wearing jeans. There is a halacha that as Jews we cannot dress like the goyim. I think a male Jew who wears jeans would be not be following the above said halacha. What do you think?
People have said many times here in the CR, that the posts are becoming downright nasty. I agree to this and and I am defintely included in the category of nasty-post-writers. I feel though that their words are falling on deaf ears. Instead, I ask of you to not be that nasty and mean. Just a little if you must.
So what about jeans?
I don’t know about jeans, but if we are not supposed to wear clothes that the goyim wear, why do so many girls’ school uniforms incorporate plaid skirts/ jumpers from Catholic school uniforms? Once I was taking my kids to the park & saw a girl wearing a plaid jumper just like my daughter’s school uniform. I hurried over to say hello, but on closer inspection realized the family belonged to a local parish school.
Exactly what makes certain clothing “chukos hagoyim” and other clothing not? If goyim on Wall Street are wearing plain white shirts should Jewish men avoid dressing this way? If hats would come back should Jewish men stop wearing those?
Full Disclosure: I wear jeans, so my posts will be slightly biased
Clearly, I do not have a problem with jeans.
Here is why:
1) why is it different then any other type of legwear?
2) In many cases, it is simply more practical than khakis/dress pants
3) why not?
what else is chukas hagoyim? eating chocolate chip cookies? the goyim started that. or maybe breathing?
give me a break. you’re not going to find it assur. and i know what you’re all going to say. yeah, i do wear jeans and i understand why a yeshiva guy wouldn’t. i also understand why a yeshiva guy wouldn’t have my haircut or wear a necklace or a sweatshirt to yeshiva. doesn’t make any of it assur.
i don’t think it’s so much a matter of dressin like the goyim, but more an issue of dressing in a mechubad manner. I find that as a frum Jew, we have an obligation to dress in a manner befitting our status. the son or daughter of a king would not go around in rags, and thats not to call jeans rags, but it, as an israeli woud say, “rechovi”- street wear. its not a material which implies royalty, which is what every Jew is, and if we are royal, shouldn’t we make sure to be proud of it?
Since tentwenty30 mentioned it, I’ll also provide a full disclosure and note that none of my immediate relatives wear jeans, except for children who are under 4. I never personally wore jeans, since I’m a woman. Regarding uniforms, I actually was never required to wear one until I attended seminary in E”Y.
Thank you shana3.
moish: i’m not taking sides here, but if you ask me, there’s nothing wrong with wearing a sweatshirt to Yeshiva.$
joseph, i look a lot better than half the “frum” guys out there. i dress neatly and what i think is normally.
what do you think royal people wear nowadays? they’re with the times. you think they wear suits all the time? well they don’t. i’m sure they have plenty of informal attire.
with that haircut and necklace?
qwerty, no idea what yeshiva you went to, but some of them get real nit-picky on what kind of sweaters the guys wear. we were allowed sweaters, but they didn’t approve of sweatshirts. of course it depended on who was wearing it… i always got nailed.
funny. it’s not the biggest deal. if you saw me you wouldn’t know i was wearing a necklace under my shirt. guaranteed. and so what if my haircut isn’t SO short? it’s not LONG, trust me. (actually, maybe right now it is, but i’m waiting for my mom to tell me to go get a haircut… i know i’m so mean)
moish: i’m not gonna say where i went, but i realized when i graduated, it wasn’t all too normal.$
i know a of a guy who the yeshiva told he couldn’t take the regent that day, cause he came wearing green(dark green) khaki pants!!! yeshiva was over, and it was regents time-close to summer-the yeshiva went bizzerk!!!
moish01: your so like my bro, he won’t either get a haircut to someone tells him to!!!!
that’s insane. they’re probably not allowed to do that. it’s a state test, right? technically anyone can come take a regent there if they’re registered. imagine a public school kid want to come and they send him home because he’s not wearing black pants??
and i know it’s mean, but i always wait till my mom complains about my hair before getting a haircut. i don’t know why i do it, but it’s the one thing i’m not nice about. oh well.
moish01: yeah they so were not allowed to do that!!! yes a regents a state test!! he told the yeshiva they have no right doing that, he studied for the test-how could they ruin his concintration like that….he sat down & took the regent & got close to a 100%!!! the yeshiva refused to take him back for the next year!!!
moish01: if thats the only thing then u r not mean at all
this whole idea is so stupid…do you really thik god cares if a person who is putting on teffilin everyday and learning 6 hours a day do u think he cares if hes wearing jeans or not?
granted people who are less religious are usually the ones who wear jeans…but there is nothing wrong witht the jeansit is with the people wearing them
moish01: i think my bro does it, cause of all the times my dad took him to the barber & told the israeli guy to keep cutting!!! i actually have a funny barber story, my uncle in isreal, is a very intresting fellow, when he was young he threating a barber he’ll brake is mirror with his fist if he cuts too short!!! the guy thought he was kidding & for kicks cut short!!! my uncle put his fist thru the mirror & shattered the mirror!!! the barber went nuts!!!
dunno what school that is (and i don’t want to know) but they need major help. that’s all i can say.
moish, my brothers are the same, no haircut till mom says. My mother once decided that she’s not gonna make a big deal about it and didn’t say a word to my brother about his hair. For one month, for two months, for three months…. He looked like a tiger!!!! But he seriously wouldn’t get a haircut until she complained about his hair.
~a~
teen, yeah i’m actually a pretty good kid. just bother my mom once in a while. nothing major.
“there is nothing wrong with the jeans, it is with the people wearing them.”
LOL
asdfghjkl: that’s hilarious, it should be posted in the humor thread.$
moish01: true true!!!
you kidding? my younger brother looks like he gets one every day. but he’s perfect anyway so who cares.
anyway i think it’s close to two months now. maybe more 😉 and it started out longer than usual… ha i wonder if my mom is purposely not saying anything! we’ll find out eventually…
moish: we know you’re a great kid.$
There are jeans and there is denim. Same but different. Like with everything it’s not the actual clothing but who is wearing it, why they’re wearing what they are and how the clothing is worn.
Most important is not to judge someone by how he dresses. Some people dress to make a statement, some to feel comfortable and some because it is appropriate at that time to dress in a certain manner.
It’s all relative but at the same time one needs to stay focused on how a religious Jew should dress and present themselves.
moish01
that’s not mean, that’s pathetic.
intellegent: obviously you have nothing intellegent to say if thats all he does than he is an amazing son trust me i know kids who curse thier parents out if they even walk near them (ok not that extreme but u get the idea)
Hey, of course there is nothing wrong with jeans – Calvin Klein was Jewish 🙂
My personal opinion is that there is nothing wrong with jeans. They are acceptable casual clothing nowadays.
Sometimes, I think people focus too much on external (non-halachic) issues, rather than working on mitzvos. To me it doesnt make sense to focus on “no jeans” (especially if its something that bothers someone) if someone is struggling mightily with another mitzvah.
Granted, there is nothing wrong with trying to dress better l’kavod Hashem, but I think its important to step back and ask “Is this l’kavod Hashem or for fake external recognition?” There are plenty of nice/tailored looking jeans that are respectful and there are plenty of dirty/ripped inappropriate black pants. Defining the color/material doesnt specifically make it a better garment.
One thing that I always wondered is there are plenty of families where the men will not wear jeans, but the women wear jean skirts. I really do not understand this. Can someone explain this?
The entire levush of chassidim is the garb of the Polish nobility of yesteryear. It doesn’t get more non-Jewish than that. If anyone wants to say that the Polish do not dress like that anymore, that’s true, but the first Jews who started wearing that levush were already going against the halacha, in those days. Everythign we wear, schooluniforms on our kids (as was already pointed out), suits, shirts, dresses, shoes, jewelry. etc. are the levush of non-Jews. We have to wear SOMETHING, for heaven’s sake. As long as it is tzniusdig and covers the body, it should not matter if it is silk or burlap. We have worn both. Jeans are just blue cloth. As long as they are not ripped and are clean, I cannot fathom how anyone can complain about it. We are too hung up by what is on the person, than by what is IN the person.
I don’t get the no jeans thing. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I wonder if it’s because originally jeans were made for workers and in general Yeshiva guys don’t work (manual labor)? I wonder if these people know that today you can buy a pair of jeans for hundreds of dollars. Nice classy jeans that you can dress up. Jeans that cost more than many guys’ suits.
jewess, one hundred? you can get then for much more than that.
oh my bad i think i’m losing my mind. you wrote “hundreds“
Jeans are also known as dungarees because they are made for farmers that work with dung.
I heard Rabbi Yosef Viener say in a shiur “chukos hagoy” is only if what they are doing is out of “goyishkeit.” I highly doubt wearing jeans has anything to do with “goyishkeit.” I see it as serving a function. Jeans are extremely durable. I myself don’t own a pair.
really, 21? my uncle used to call them dungarees… i gotta tell brooklyn19
Mod, no problems there – there were plenty of Jewish farmers!
Denim was a material used for tents during the California Gold Rush. Levi Strauss ( a Jew) decided to use his tent material to create a sturdy pair of pants that would hold up under tough mining conditions, and could easily be washed and re-worn. (This started stone washed denim). The material enjoyed popularity with laborers because it was inexpensive and outlasted most of the other materials that clothing were made of. When the Zionists came to build Israel they needed sturdy clothing material, too. Denim became popular, albeit expensive in Israel. Many rabbonim equated the wearing of denim with secular Jews/Zionists. Thus we have the attitude that wearing denim is dressing in a way that identifies with a non charedi outlook. However if you speak to any frum Israeli today they usually buy denim for their little kids and particularly are excited by the Children’s Place clothing. They stop their children from wearing denim before they enter first grade. A woman wearing a perfectly modest, not tight fitting, denim skirt can be sure that her daughter will not be accepted to Bais Yaakov. However I am amused by the proliferation of denim housecoats for sale in most women’s robe stores…… In charedi Israel it is clear that denim is not assur, but it can be used for either the home or on vacation or pre-school…..Can you imagine if someone made a black denim bekeshe?
SJSinNYC I agree – just make sure you are one if you are wearing them. You wouldn’t wear scrubs if you weren’t a doctor or scuba gear if you werent a scuba diver or a mets outfit if you are a yankee fan
eyesopen- you beat me to it, i finally had some concrete info on a subject…
21- loved your first post… and your second post drives it home
Context seems to control here. When I’m working around my yard, or putting up or taking down the sukkah, or shoveling snow etc, jeans seem the perfect clothing. Once I’m wearing them, I rarely change outof them, unless I’m going out where I need to be more formally dressed. As to dressing in a mechubad way, those who feel a clean pair of jeans and a freshly laundered sport shirt is not mechubad, please explain how the uniform of many a yeshiva leit, consisting of a wrinkled white shirt, often unlaundered, a pair of trousers that have not seen an iron in months, and worn out unpolished loafers, mismatched with an ill fitting jacket and topped by a frayed worn hat, is mechubad.
cantoresq- you sound like a typical teenager.- finding the other extreme to suit your reasoning. Like I always say- no extreme is good- it’s the middle road we’ve got to take. Nobody is endorsing the picture you painted
“As to dressing in a mechubad way, those who feel a clean pair of jeans and a freshly laundered sport shirt is not mechubad, please explain how the uniform of many a yeshiva leit, consisting of a wrinkled white shirt, often unlaundered, a pair of trousers that have not seen an iron in months, and worn out unpolished loafers, mismatched with an ill fitting jacket and topped by a frayed worn hat, is mechubad. “
Good point. But to be fair, halacha actually dictates that a talmid chochom is NOT supposed to have even a spot on his shirt. So they really are not doing the right thing if the clothing is soiled and wrinkled.
Jeans are considerd nowadays to be normal casual clothing,not farmers clothing or undignified clothing.Even presidents and other dignitaries have no problem being seen in them and it is not considerd bizyonisdick. Of course if the situation would call for dignified clothing (such as on shabbos) you shouldnt wear them then.
Don’t we paskin that if what the goyim are doing makes sense and your’e not spiking your hair just because the goyim do it- that it’s mutar(like the Ran) But I don’t know what makes sense in wearing jeans(I never wore them- I simply don’t know- there might be something more comfortable about them- but then should Ribono shel olams nation be wearing street wear?)
areivim, oh is that what teenagers do?
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