Banning The Burqa: Unveiling The French Jewish Face In
Zionism
9 March 2010By Reuven Firestone
While on sabbatical as a family in Egypt a couple of
years ago, we quickly became accustomed to seeing
women wearing head coverings on the street. Nearly
every single Muslim woman over the age of 12 wore one.
The general word for these is hijab, which is a
quranic term meaning “barrier” or “screen.” In a
famous verse (33:53) it refers to a partition in the
home of the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to separate thea
women of his family from the eyes of the many people
who would come to Muhammad’s home seeking an audience
with him. Its meaning is basically the same as the
Hebrew word mechitzah, the barrier that separates the
women’s section from the men’s section in traditional
synagogues.
The intent of the quranic verse was to protect the
women of Muhammad’s family from the intrusion of
strangers and the possible embarrassment that could
result. Because of the egalitarian nature of Arabian
society in general, religious interpreters applied the
notion not only to the family of the prophet, but to
all Muslim families, and soon the term was applied to
a common form of modesty practiced also among
Christian and Jewish and Zoroastrian women at the time
— covering the hair. The purpose was to encourage
modest dress and protect women from the prying eyes of
men.
We found the issue of modest dress curious in Egypt.
Modesty in Cairo today means covering every inch of
skin aside from the face, hands and feet, and that
includes covering the hair. But at the same time,
teenage girls and young women often wear tight tops
and jeans that reveal every bump and wrinkle of their
bodies. It is rare to see a niqab in Egypt, the
full-face covering or veil.
Burqa is an Arabic term that refers to any face
covering with eye openings. It is common today to use
burqa to refer to the Afghan garment that envelops a
woman’s entire face and body except for a small square
area around the eyes that is covered by a concealing
net or grille. The more accurate term for that is
actually chadri.
In any case, niqab or burqa refers to a piece of
clothing that covers the entire face, or all the face
except the eyes. The issue of covering has been a
point of contention for Muslim religious scholars for
many centuries. While all consider modest dress
required, some scholars also consider covering the
face obligatory. Others consider it highly recommended
but not required. Still others actually consider it
forbidden, and the issue continues to arouse debate in
the Muslim world.
Surprising as it may seem, France has decided to weigh
in on the issue and has begun the process to issue its
own version of a fatwa on the matter. Already in 2004,
Parliament passed a law banning the wearing of
conspicuous religious symbols in French
government-operated schools. This outlawed not only
the Muslim headscarf, but also kippot and outward
wearing of the crucifix.
Last July, President Nicolas Sarkozy targeted the
burqa as an affront to human and civil rights. “The
burqa is not a religious problem,” he told the French
Parliament. “It’s a problem of freedom and the dignity
of women.” Later that same day, while visiting Muslim
graves at a WWI cemetery, he said, “Islam is today the
religion of many French people…. France can’t allow
French Muslims to be stigmatized.”
Those are astonishing words. I don’t understand how
banning religious expression is not a religious
problem, and I cannot for the life of me understand
how banning a garment indicative of Muslim modesty is
not an act of stigmatization.
I do understand, however, why people might consider
banning the burqa to be supportive of Muslim women’s
dignity. We naturally want to help people who we
imagine are being persecuted. But condemning the burqa
is imposing one set of culturally and religiously
defined values or an aesthetic standard onto people
who may not agree. How do we know that wearing a burqa
is a humiliation? How is it shameful? How do you or I
know how a woman wearing a full-face veil feels about
it? Personally, I find many outfits that are worn in
Beverly Hills among a variety of men and women to be
humiliating. Why not pass a law banning the wearing of
miniskirts and low-cut tops among sagging, aging
women? Or black toupees on graying old men?
Here’s an example closer to home. I personally find
the practice of shaving a beautiful young woman’s
head, even if intended for modesty, to be an act of
chillul haShem. We were created in God’s image. We
desecrate God’s image whenever we purposefully
disfigure our bodies. And halachah does not require
shaving married Jewish women’s heads. It is only
custom, and only within some communities, yet it would
be a terrible and unethical act of interference on the
religious and cultural rights of Jews for any
government to ban the practice.
Two weeks ago, a government commission in France
recommended banning the burqa in public buildings such
as schools and hospitals, but not on the streets.
Jean-Francois Copé, leader of Sarkozy’s majority party
in Parliament (the UMP) explained, “The two reasons
why we have to implement legislation is to respect the
rights of women and, second, it’s a question of
security. Who can imagine that in a country like ours,
people can walk everywhere in the country and also in
our cities with a burqa, without the possibility to
recognize their face?”
Banning someone from wearing a veil is not respecting
a woman’s rights. It is exactly the opposite: It is a
blatant act of disrespecting her right to choose what
to wear. Security may be another matter, but if
wearing a full-body burqa is forbidden in public
buildings but allowed in the streets, how is that
increasing security when a terrorist could walk
anywhere on the streets of Paris wearing a burqa
packed with explosives? I admit that I would make a
terrible suicide bomber, but it seems to me that if I
wanted to smuggle body explosives into a public place,
I would wear a trench coat rather than traditional
Islamic or Arab dress. Why invite scrutiny in the
current climate?
These new developments in France remind me of a
similar move almost exactly two centuries ago when
Napoleon called a Grand Sanhedrin in 1807. That was
when an assemblage of Jewish notables was put under
intense government pressure to change thousands of
years of Jewish tradition in order to conform to
French sensibilities. The Jewish leaders were asked 12
questions that were intended to determine whether Jews
were worthy of French citizenship. They included such
questions as whether it was acceptable in Jewish law
for Jews to marry Christians or whether Jews were
allowed to be usurious toward non-Jews. The Jewish
leaders fudged their answers, wrote in vague language
and were not entirely forthcoming (to say the least).
Their answers nevertheless passed muster, but
“passing” required, among other stipulations, that the
Jewish leaders condemn all “false interpretations of
their religious laws.” How would that be determined?
Who would rule on the so-called “false
interpretations?” The trade-off for citizenship was
the denial of the unique value of our religious
culture and the vibrant nature of Jewish religious
discourse. The result was, among other things, a huge
wave of assimilation and loss of Jewish identity.
No, banning the burqa is not an attempt to protect the
dignity of women or to increase security. It is an
attempt to make “ethnics” conform to a flat and
unimaginative sense of what it means to be French. It
is legal enforcement of an outdated and oppressive
ideology that does not respect the fundamental freedom
to express one’s religious identity in public.
-- Reuven Firestone is a professor of Medieval Judaism
and Islam at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of
Religion in Los Angeles. This article originally
appeared in the Jewish Journal.
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