The Orthodox Jews in Zurich are among the most conservative in the world. Their wives hide the hair under a wig and have no right to vote in the religious community. How are these women?
My first apartment in Zurich was in a Jewish house. In the middle of district 3 near the arch-conservative synagogue Agudas Achim. There was an old Jew, who was wearing temples, a black hat, and black clothes. When I met him in the stairs, he looked down at the floor. Once the Jewish landlords, who lived among us, knocked at our door. It was summer. They asked me not to enter the balcony. Other householders had complained.

It still remained a mystery to me today, why the landlords had rented the apartment to us, a secluded residential community in every respect. If they were motivated by the desire to allow a meeting between cultures, one must say: it has failed. In the middle of Zurich, Orthodox Jews live entirely in their own world, strictly according to the 613 commandments and prohibitions of the Torah. You see the men go to the synagogue several times a day. The women are traveling with a group of children. They wear dark, shapeless clothes and wigs. Why do we make so many thoughts about Muslim women being forced under the headscarf, but not about these Jewish women? Are the parallels not obvious: the women hide the hair, and the men have the say?

Hannah Weitzmann - that is the name of the woman here - is thirty-five years old and comes from a very pious family. I visit her in her apartment in Kreis 3, which is within walking distance of the orthodox-charedic synagogue of the Israelitische Religionsgemeinschaft Zürich. Her one-year-old daughter crawls on the floor, three more children are in kindergarten and school, the husband is studying the Torah in another room. Numerous leather-bound religious writings fill the bookshelves. Family photos are flashing in a digital picture frame. Weitzmann is fashionably, but modestly dressed: the arms are covered, the jupe reaches over the knee, no Décolleté. The sweeping hairstyle is almost too perfect to be natural.

After Hannah Weitzmann had attended the Jewish school in Zurich, she went to a Jewish girl colleague in England. While the boys at the Talmudhochschule went into religious studies, they were primarily prepared for their role as guardian of the Jewish house. It does not therefore feel disadvantaged. "All my girlfriends were there," she says. "We had a great time. At the age of 19 then the marriage, the most important event in the life of a Jewish woman, with a man who had been proposed to her by the parents. "I know it sounds crassy," she says, laughing, "but that's how it is with us." In a cheerful chat, she counts the benefits of an arranged marriage: "Parents make extensive clarifications; they want to know if the future son-in-law is decent And is neat, with whom he is so befriended, and whether he comes from intact family relationships. "The latter seems particularly important, a divorced child is not trusted to a happy family life. Hannah Weitzmann finds it a good thing to marry very young as usual in her milieu. "You do not think so much." She had not been in love with her husband when she said yes, she says, and her voice sounds uncertain for a moment. "I married him because I realized we shared the same values and ideas. One grows together. Hannah Weitzmann does not seem to belong to the sort of woman you have to save. For them the rules make sense cheap full lace wig human hair, which determine their life as a woman. It does not bother her that during menstruation and on the seven consecutive days she is not allowed to touch her husband and is not touched by him. "The break has a positive effect on sex life," she enthuses, which can be understood even in the face of the aggravated sex fatigue. She does not feel humiliated when she has to tell the rabbi all the details of her bleeding. And this one then decides whether their period is considered finished and they can start counting the seven impure days. "He is trained in it." Even the ritual dive bath, which ends the "unclean" days and prepares them for the physical encounter with the husband, does not feel discriminating - but a soothing ritual.

For women who want more rights, they do not have much left. "They are mostly not very religious. Otherwise, they would appreciate more the task which God has given them. "She is sure that Jewish women who live as traditionally as they are are valued in their milieu. "We are much more important within the community than we are recognized from the outside. And the wig? For Hannah Weitzmann she is a fashionable accessory ( «never more a Bad Hair Day») and for a variety of reasons a wonderful thing. "I was delighted when I was able to put on my first wig after my marriage. She turns the girl into a woman. "Today, in her wardrobe beside the jacket and the umbrella, there is always a hair head which she puts on when she opens the door or leaves the house. The wig is a symbolic "border," she says. She always reminded her that she belonged to her husband, and prevented strangers from being tempted. But why is artificial hair, which generally looks lush and beautiful than natural, deter men? "In our milieu every man is aware that my hair is not genuine," is the reasoning, which seems to be strange to outsiders, "and if you know it is simply something else." The wig is not the only one, by the way "Border" between the sexes: Hannah Weitzmann greeted men with no handshake, embrace, or kisses Wigsen.com, "because so many a sudden start has begun."