Someone she can look up to: Proud, strong, smart, gorgeous religious women we're not afraid to show our daughters
Not long after we moved to Israel, I found Naomi Rivka, who was 8 at the time, playing with her Barbies. The Barbies were all dressed up, as usual, but there was something new: one the head of one, Naomi Rivka had wound a delicate assemblage of toilet paper and lace, towering high and graceful over the doll's pretty, slender face. Here in Israel, we were suddenly surrounded by beautiful, graceful, slender young married Sephardi women, for whom a tichel, piled as high as possible, is the de rigeur headware -- and that was exactly how Naomi Rivka wanted her Barbie to look. And because 8-year-old girls are reasonably transparent, chances were good that that was how she herself wanted to look someday. Tall, slim, high cheekbones, okay... those may be genetic factors. But gloriously crowned in a high, swirling tichel... that's something you learn from your environment. That's something little girls pick up from looking around and role playing years, and even decades, befor