Back in Time

• In the Katamonim ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/number-4-bus.html ), the architecture was from the third quarter of the 20th century and most of the people had ancestors who had moved from Spain to North Africa 514 years ago, or lived in Iraq for 2500 years, or in Persia for a little less, or who trace their lineage to the Queen of Sheba. Others came from Yemin after a couple of thousand years there, and a few from Geyorgia after 1600 or so years there.
• They wear skirts or slacks. Married women who cover their hair do so with a scarf tied under the hair at the nape of the neck ot crossed at the nape to tie or lap over the forehead. These women usually wear short sleeves in summer. About a quarter of the younger women wear very short sleeves or tank tops over tight jeans.
• In the Moshava ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/pump.html )some of the architecture is from the nineteenth century, but the people are dressedvery 21st.
• Across King George ( http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/street-of-prophets.html ) the architecture is late 19th and 20th century, but the people try to reach back to the 18th or early 19th. Men dress to pass in a Polish city under Tsarist rule. Most of the women dress in whatever modern fashions will cover them from wrist to collar bone and to ankle. They wear skirts not slacks.
• Some older women wear skirts to midcalf, and opaque stockings below, but younger women and girls insist on ankle-length skirts.
• Many are fashionably, if not seasonably dressed.
• Married women cover their hair with page-boy wigs or with hats, or with wigs and hats, or with varieties of turbans, which mark the particular group that expects their allegiance.
• Muslim Arab women in traditional dress are even more covered, for they drape their necks as well as their hair. They, however, may wear slacks, while the Jewish women north of Yafo don't.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox