the shame kittel
Sometimes our identities are created from within our culture, and sometimes they are imposed upon us. This kittel focuses on the ways that clothing has been used to shame and disgrace Jews in some of the darker episodes of our story.
There is a long and grim history of yellow marks that Jews have had to wear on their clothing - yellow circles, stars, tablets of law, and yellow belts. In mediaeval christian art, yellow equals Jew. (See Witz’s Synagoga) There are many theories posed by academics and scholars as to why this is so. Yellow has many associations. Judas, jealousy. It is reminiscent of the stains of urine or sweat. And it is the colour of TB or syphillis, both were considered ‘jewish’ diseases.
This kittel takes it’s form from an etching by Goya “For Being of A Jew.” In it Goya has drawn Jews being rounded up and humiliated in the Spanish Inquisition. He has depicted them wearing a tabard-like tunic and a pointed hat.
There are also elements of clothing being used to shame an individual, to identify them by their sinful behaviour, from within our culture. Part of the humiliation for the suspected adulteress going through the Sotah ritual, is to change her clothes from white to black. Her (possible) sin is expressed in her clothing to publicly shame her. The bottom of this kittel is dipped dyed grey, the white transforming into the black.
On the front of this kittel is a yellow stain in the area of a sweat mark on the chest. To sweat is to exert effort, because without working hard, without pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone of regular activity, we may not be able to achieve. Sweat marks indicate we are vulnerable to failure.
Within the yellow stain emerge various derogatory names for Jews. And women. It has often been noted that those groups who feel victimised, end up displaying similar aggressive attitudes on the women within their community. Anti-semitic stereotypes of money grabbing Jews have found their way into Jewish culture’s stereotype of the materialistic Jewish American Princess. Today in Israel we are witnessing a similar pattern. It is no coincidence that the religious ring-wing groups who feel that they are victims, with their way of life under attack by the secular state, are the same groups that are labelling and degrading women.
There is a long and grim history of yellow marks that Jews have had to wear on their clothing - yellow circles, stars, tablets of law, and yellow belts. In mediaeval christian art, yellow equals Jew. (See Witz’s Synagoga) There are many theories posed by academics and scholars as to why this is so. Yellow has many associations. Judas, jealousy. It is reminiscent of the stains of urine or sweat. And it is the colour of TB or syphillis, both were considered ‘jewish’ diseases.
This kittel takes it’s form from an etching by Goya “For Being of A Jew.” In it Goya has drawn Jews being rounded up and humiliated in the Spanish Inquisition. He has depicted them wearing a tabard-like tunic and a pointed hat.
There are also elements of clothing being used to shame an individual, to identify them by their sinful behaviour, from within our culture. Part of the humiliation for the suspected adulteress going through the Sotah ritual, is to change her clothes from white to black. Her (possible) sin is expressed in her clothing to publicly shame her. The bottom of this kittel is dipped dyed grey, the white transforming into the black.
On the front of this kittel is a yellow stain in the area of a sweat mark on the chest. To sweat is to exert effort, because without working hard, without pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone of regular activity, we may not be able to achieve. Sweat marks indicate we are vulnerable to failure.
Within the yellow stain emerge various derogatory names for Jews. And women. It has often been noted that those groups who feel victimised, end up displaying similar aggressive attitudes on the women within their community. Anti-semitic stereotypes of money grabbing Jews have found their way into Jewish culture’s stereotype of the materialistic Jewish American Princess. Today in Israel we are witnessing a similar pattern. It is no coincidence that the religious ring-wing groups who feel that they are victims, with their way of life under attack by the secular state, are the same groups that are labelling and degrading women.
