Jewfro

Let us gather now to speak of puffy hair. You know what I’m talking about. That nappy, kinky, frizzy stuff that we have straightened, pulled back, slicked down, blown dry, blow torched and hacked off. But there are some who dig their hair’s natural freakiness—those stylish souls who make the tribe (if not their mothers) proud by kicking the fully-grown Jewfro.

This might be a stretch, but it seems to me that the proper Jewfro arises, literally, from a distinguished legacy. Think of Einstein. That whole theory of relativity was pretty cool, but without the hair, would anyone have really paid attention? Dylan’s Brillo pad was a more conscious creation, and brought the look into vogue with the macramé crowd. Raise your hand if old photos of your dad show someone who could have feasibly passed for a Black Panther or Harlem Globetrotter from behind. Please, have no shame.

Personally, I know the perils of Jewish hair well. I got mine layered in junior high, a travesty that my therapist still hears about to this day. It was so huge that I could have been mistaken for landscaping. Recently, a snooty hairdresser asked if I’d like my hair “texturized,” meaning chemically enhanced to straighten out the natural funk. Excuse me? Some of us like being surprised by the bathroom mirror every morning. (Note to you ladies who do straighten: Yes, we can tell.)

So how did this happen? Are our wooly locks the result of some groovy lovin’ that went down during our forty years of wandering the ancient African desert? Or maybe they’re a remnant of what we really used to look like, before some other groovy lovin’ warmed our European and Middle Eastern beds. I don’t know, but please let’s love our hair through thick and thinning, slick and frizzing, soon and in our days. Selah.

Nikki Borodi, 22

I've always had this kind of hair. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and I got harassed and made fun of for my entire growing up because of it. People would be like, ‘fro!’ and ‘radiation!’ and all this crazy stuff. The neighborhood I grew up in was 90% upper middle class Jewish and only like 10% minority, if that, with about 400 people in the high school. They were photocopies of each other. Nobody had hair like mine. Who knows if anybody at all in Cleveland, Ohio has hair like mine? It was strange. I always felt very self-conscious about it. And now I'm at a point where I love it and I wouldn't give it up for.

Jon Henry Fine, 27

I've always had big, curly hair my whole life. I used to get haircuts when I was a kid at Tino's. He was a barber. And Tino would cut my hair and he'd cut my brother's hair and he'd cut my dad's hair. And we'd always end up leaving there with the same haircut. The same haircut that Tino had. Short on the sides and poofy on top. At Tino’s we'd sit and talk about soccer and, you know, whatever. Eventually I felt like I didn't need to go to Tino's anymore. And since Tino's, I don't think I've gone to a professional barber. I've gotten haircuts by friends. So that was the last barber I went to. That was New Jersey. His barbershop's no longer there. He moved.

This excerpt is from an article originally published in HEEB #01, Winter 2002.