by Alanna E. Cooper

Haircutting Ritual for Your Daughter

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Traditional (male) upsherins are generally held near boys’ third birthdays, but historically they were also held on two other days: on Lag b’Omer, 33 days after Passover, when haircuts and festivities are traditionally permitted, and just before Shavuot, when Jews celebrate receiving the Torah — because the upsherin inducts the newly shorn child into its study.

A Little Girl’s First Haircut

The articles in this special section:

Haircutting Ritual for Your Daughter

by Alanna E. Cooper

Spring 2020

Hair and all its complications • Raising feminist boys today • Tipping, service work and our changing world • A hot new Yiddish star • Taking off my wedding ring

Winter 2019-2020

DNA secrets, hidden identities • Breast cancer and Jewish women • Tillie Olsen: feminist foremother • At her ritual haircut, she knew she was a girl • The first lady of lox

Fall 2019

#MeToo stories • Jewish women and breast cancer: crisis, intimacy, recovery • Jennifer Weiner on “chick lit’s” power • Suddenly, period positivity • A feminist Jew’s tough search for holiness in community.

Summer 2019

Jewish women and addiction. 1960s & 70s feminism roars back, trendy again. Transforming Jewish life in small-town Maine. Choosing to be Jewish–thus feeling perpetually “the stranger.” Food writing by women that changes the entire culture. She redefines the meaning of Jewish art.