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

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.

Spring 2019

“Unfaithful,” the theme of 3 prize-winning short stories • Israel’s little-known School for Peace and the woman who created it • The new questions those male policy-makers didn’t know to ask