Caspian Era education 

The Shtreimel: Artist Statement       12/2022

By Noah Weisberg

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My focus for the past months has been revolving around the Shtreimel. The Jewish headwear that under exploration can inform the experience and significance of Jewish community throughout history. The Shtreimel demonstrates how many transformations and revisions can be made to a concept throughout history. It is about harnessing the power that was once stripped from you. 

 

 

The Beginning and the Present

 

The Jewish people have always been endlessly discriminated against throughout history, all around the world, and the beginning of the story of the shtreimel begins with this. Dating back in 15th century Italy, “the Jews were forced to wear a circular yellow badge on their clothing” (Greenspoon 2013). The intended purpose of this was to make the identification of the Jewish people clear, so that people of other religions, specifically the Christian society would not have cross intercourse and endanger the purity they so desired. At one point the circular yellow badge was not seen as identifiable enough, so it became replaced by a large yellow pointed hat. There were many other ways of humiliating and ostracizing the Jewish people all across Europe. This included: “blue stripes in Sicily, a red cape in Rome, the tablets of the Law in England, a yellow wheel in France, a pointed hat in Germany, a red badge in Hungary” and the most well-known yellow Star of David badges seen during the Holocaust. 

My project was about one specific enforced marker upon the Jewish people. This occurred in 18th century Poland, “when the government solely wished to humiliate the Jews and forced them to wear an animal tail as a public display of shame” (Shurpin). Very few depictions of this exist today, but one artwork of it displays the true shame inflicted upon the Jews by the Polish government. Despite this, the Baal Shem Tov, who founded the spiritual orthodox Jewish sect that is Chassidim, led to the transformation of these enforced fur animal tails. This transformation turned the markers of humiliation into beautiful fur hats that resembled something more of an honorary crown. This hat would be known as the shtreimel. 

The Shtreimel serves as a symbol of pride in the Hasidic communities today. It lays a visual foundation for the community. Anyone who sees it will begin to understand the visual language of it, and its inseparable association to the Orthodox Jews. It was made out to be something of such great pride, that it is worn only on holidays, and passed down generation to generation once the receiving male becomes married. From something that was once enforced as a way to humiliate the Jews, it was transformed into the regal visual pillar of this religion. 

 

My Interpretation

 

In my interpretation I wanted to capture the essence of the history of the Shtreimel, and all of the deep symbolic meaning it holds. Considering the transformation of the Shtreimel from something of humiliation to something of great power, and the constant of uniformity, I initially designed my project as a Cloak. The cloak acts as a symbol to the shift of power, as throughout history it has been both representational of peasantry and that of royalty. The cloak also only revealed a section of the face, meaning that no matter the wearer they were all ultimately uniformed, just as the Orthodox garb has done for the communities. This was then iterated to a very large coat with wide drop shoulders and a large hood. The large drop shoulders and the coat itself meant to be the blend between humiliation and great power. Being such a large coat it holds great presence, and only exposing the face under the large hood unifies the wearers, and presents the great power that the Shtreimel demonstrates. The coat also has a torn and disheveled hem connecting to the way that Jews of all sects tear at their clothes when mourning a loved one. This memorializes the suffering of Jewish people throughout history. The most identifiable connection between my garment and the Shtreimel is the fur Star of David placed on the back. This reignites the enforcement of the fur animal tails to be worn on the back, and the clear and purposeful identification of a Jew. This way of having a large fur Star of David on the Back also evokes the newfound pride of being Jewish. The Shtreimel holds something of great significance, and my contextualization of it brings revitalization in the form of artistic fashion.