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Embracing their place on ‘the fringes,’ queer artists reimagine Jewish ritual garments for all bodies
(JTA) — Binya Kóatz remembers the first time she saw a woman wearing tzitzit. While attending Friday night services at a Jewish Renewal synagogue in Berkeley, she noticed the long ritual fringes worn by some observant Jews — historically men — dangling below a friend’s short shorts.
“That was the first time I really realized how feminine just having tassels dangling off you can look and be,” recalled Kóatz, an artist and activist based in the Bay Area. “That is both deeply reverent and irreverent all at once, and there’s a deep holiness of what’s happening here.”
Since that moment about seven years ago, Kóatz has been inspired to wear tzitzit every day. But she has been less inspired by the offerings available in online and brick-and-mortar Judaica shops, where the fringes are typically attached to shapeless white tunics meant to be worn under men’s clothing.
So in 2022, when she was asked to test new prototypes for the Tzitzit Project, an art initiative to create tzitzit and their associated garment for a variety of bodies, genders and religious denominations, Kóatz jumped at the chance. The project’s first products went on sale last month.
“This is a beautiful example of queers making stuff for ourselves,” Kóatz said. “I think it’s amazing that queers are making halachically sound garments that are also ones that we want to wear and that align with our culture and style and vibrancy.”
Jewish law, or halacha, requires that people who wear four-cornered garments — say, a tunic worn by an ancient shepherd — must attach fringes to each corner. The commandment is biblical: “Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages” (Numbers 15:37-41) When garments that lack corners came into fashion, many Jews responded by using tzitzit only when wearing a tallit, or prayer shawl, which has four corners.
But more observant Jews adopted the practice of wearing an additional four-cornered garment for the sole purpose of fulfilling the commandment to tie fringes to one’s clothes. Called a tallit katan, or small prayer shawl, the garment is designed to be worn under one’s clothes and can be purchased at Judaica stores or online for less than $15. The fringes represent the 613 commandments of the Torah, and it is customary to hold them and kiss them at certain points while reciting the Shema prayer.
“They just remind me of my obligations, my mitzvot, and my inherent holiness,” Kóatz said. “That’s the point, you see your tzitzit and you remember everything that it means — all the obligations and beauty of being a Jew in this world.”
The California-based artists behind the Tzitzit Project had a hunch that the ritual garment could appeal to a more diverse set of observant Jews than the Orthodox men to whom the mass-produced options are marketed. Julie Weitz and Jill Spector had previously collaborated on the costumes for Weitz’s 2019 “My Golem” performance art project that uses the mythical Jewish creature to explore contemporary issues. In one installment of the project focused on nature, “Prayer for Burnt Forests,” Weitz’s character ties a tallit katan around a fallen tree and wraps the tzitzit around its branches.
“I was so moved by how that garment transformed my performance,” Weitz said, adding that she wanted to find more ways to incorporate the garment into her life.
The Tzitzit Project joins other initiatives meant to explore and expand the use of tzitzit. A 2020 podcast called Fringes featured interviews with a dozen trans and gender non-conforming Jews about their experiences with Jewish ritual garments. (Kóatz was a guest.) Meanwhile, an online store, Netzitzot, has since 2014 sold tzitzit designed for women’s bodies, made from modified H&M undershirts.
The Tzitzit Project goes further and sells complete garments that take into account the feedback of testers including Kóatz — in three colors and two lengths, full and cropped, as well as other customization options related to a wearer’s style and religious practices. (The garments cost $100, but a sliding scale for people with financial constraints can bring the price as far down as $36.)
Spector and Weitz found that the trial users were especially excited by the idea that the tzitzit could be available in bright colors, and loved how soft the fabric felt on their bodies, compared to how itchy and ill-fitting they found traditional ones to be. They also liked that each garment could be worn under other clothing or as a more daring top on its own.
To Weitz, those attributes are essential to her goal of “queering” tzitzit.
“Queering something also has to do with an embrace of how you wear things and how you move your body in space and being proud of that and not carrying any shame around that,” she said. “And I think that that stylization is really distinct. All those gender-conventional tzitzit for men — they’re not about style, they’re not about reimagining how you can move your body.”
Artist Julie Weitz ties the knots of the tzitzit, fringes attached to the corners of a prayer shawl or the everyday garment known as a “tallit katan.” (Courtesy of Tzitzit Project)
For Chelsea Mandell, a rabbinical student at the Academy of Jewish Religion in Los Angeles who is nonbinary, the Tzitzit Project is creating Jewish ritual objects of great power.
“It deepens the meaning and it just feels more radically spiritual to me, when it’s handmade by somebody I’ve met, aimed for somebody like me,” said Mandell, who was a product tester.
Whether the garments meet the requirements of Jewish law is a separate issue. Traditional interpretations of the law hold that the string must have been made specifically for tzitzit, for example — but it’s not clear on the project’s website whether the string it uses was sourced that way. (The project’s Instagram page indicates that the wool is spun by a Jewish fiber artist who is also the brother of the alt-rocker Beck.)
“It is not obvious from their website which options are halachically valid and which options are not,” said Avigayil Halpern, a rabbinical student who began wearing tzitzit and tefillin at her Modern Orthodox high school in 2013 when she was 16 and now is seen as a leader in the movement to widen their use.
“And I think it’s important that queer people in particular have as much access to knowledge about Torah and mitzvot as they’re embracing mitzvot.”
Weitz explained that there are multiple options for the strings — Tencel, cotton or hand-spun wool — depending on what customers prefer, for their comfort and for their observance preferences.
“It comes down to interpretation,” she said. “For some, tzitzit tied with string not made for the purpose of tying, but with the prayer said, is kosher enough. For others, the wool spun for the purpose of tying is important.”
Despite her concerns about its handling of Jewish law, Halpern said she saw the appeal of the Tzitzit Project, with which she has not been involved.
“For me and for a lot of other queer people, wearing something that is typically associated with Jewish masculinity — it has a gender element,” explained Halpern, a fourth-year student at Hadar, the egalitarian yeshiva in New York.
“If you take it out of the Jewish framework, there is something very femme and glamorous and kind of fun in the ways that dressing up and wearing things that are twirly is just really joyful for a lot of people,” she said.
Rachel Schwartz first became drawn to tzitzit while studying at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem in 2018. There, young men who were engaging more intensively with Jewish law and tradition than they had in the past began to adopt the garments, and Schwartz found herself wondering why she had embraced egalitarian religious practices in all ways but this one.
“One night, I took one of my tank tops and I cut it up halfway to make the square that it needed. I found some cool bandanas at a store and I sewed on corners,” Schwartz recalled. “And I bought the tzitzit at one of those shops on Ben Yehuda and I just did it and it was awesome.”
Rachel Schwartz stands in front of a piece of graffiti that plays on the commandment to wear tzitzit, written in the Hebrew feminine. (Courtesy of Rachel Schwartz)
Schwartz’s experience encapsulates both the promise and the potential peril of donning tzitzit for people from groups that historically have not worn the fringes. Other women at the Conservative Yeshiva were so interested in her tzitzit that she ran a workshop where she taught them how to make the undergarment. But she drew so many critical comments from men on the streets of Jerusalem that she ultimately gave up wearing tzitzit publicly.
“I couldn’t just keep on walking around like that anymore. I was tired of the comments,” Schwartz said. “I couldn’t handle it anymore.”
Rachel Davidson, a Reconstructionist rabbi working as a chaplain in health care in Ohio, started consistently wearing a tallit katan in her mid-20s. Like Kóatz, she ordered her first one from Netzitzot.
“I would love to see a world where tallitot katanot that are shaped for non cis-male bodies are freely available and are affordable,” Davidson said. “I just think it’s such a beautiful mitzvah. I would love it if more people engaged with it.”
Kóatz believes that’s not only possible but natural. As a trans woman, she said she is drawn to tzitzit in part because of the way they bring Jewish tradition into contact with contemporary ideas about gender.
“Queers are always called ‘fringe,’” she said. “And here you have a garment which is literally like ‘kiss the fringes.’ The fringes are holy.”
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German Lawmakers, Jewish Leaders Push for Mandatory Imam Certification Amid Rising Antisemitism
Ali Erbas, president of Diyanet, speaks at a press conference following an August 2025 gathering in Istanbul, where 150 Islamic scholars called for armed resistance and a boycott against Israel. Photo: Screenshot
German lawmakers and the country’s Jewish community are calling for a mandatory certification process for all imams amid a surging wave of antisemitism, including multiple cases of religious leaders promoting anti-Jewish violence.
“Mosques must not be places where hatred against Jews is spread. It is our responsibility to ensure that Jews in Germany can study, work, celebrate, and pray in safety,” Klaus Holetschek, a member of the Bavarian State Parliament in southern Germany, told the German newspaper Bild.
With more than five million Muslims in Germany, many turn to imams for spiritual guidance.
Most of these religious leaders are trained abroad — especially in Turkey — and brought to local mosques by large Muslim organizations on multi‑year contracts, shaping the religious education and messaging that reaches the community.
“We must ensure that imams are trained in Germany without the influence of Islamist associations, or that they complete an integration course before assuming their duties,” Holetschek said.
Amid Germany’s push to train more imams domestically and curb the import of foreign clergy, Holetschek emphasized that the effort is not an attack on Muslims, but “a key measure for effective prevention.”
“Many of the people who have reached out to us over the years come from countries where antisemitism is state-sponsored and children are taught to hate Israel in schools,” the German lawmaker said.
The Conference of European Rabbis (CER) has joined the new initiative, praising it as a vital step toward combating antisemitism and promoting safe, inclusive communities
“The impact of hate preachers and foreign-controlled extremist networks in Europe has long been underestimated,” CER’s president, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, told Bild.
“Imams must demonstrate a clear commitment to democracy, the rule of law, equality, religious freedom for all, and social cohesion — and embody these values in their daily practice,” he continued.
Last year, amid a rising wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes, the German government urged the country’s main mosque association to publicly break with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric, citing the association’s close ties to him.
According to local reports, German authorities told the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) — the country’s largest mosque network — to formally break with Erdogan’s hateful statements or risk losing government support and cooperation.
For years, the German government has supported DITIB in training imams, as well as helping to foster community programs and religious initiatives.
In 2023, then-Interior Minister Nancy Faeser signed an agreement with the Turkish government’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) and DITIB for a new imam training program.
By sending imams from Turkey and paying their salaries, the Diyanet oversees DITIB and its hundreds of communities across Germany, shaping the ideological direction of more than 900 mosques and influencing the training of their imams.
Under a new program, the Diyanet no longer sends imams directly from Turkey. Instead, Turkish students are trained in Germany in cooperation with the German Islam Conference (IKD).
With this new agreement, imams live permanently in German communities and have no formal ties to the Turkish government. Still, experts doubt that this alone would curb the Diyanet’s political influence.
In the past, DITIB has faced multiple controversies, with some members making antisemitic remarks and spreading hateful messages.
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North Carolina Democratic Party Muslim Chair Says Zionists Are Nazis, and a ‘Threat to Humanity’
In May, Students for Justice in Palestine poured red paint which resembles spilled blood on the steps of the South Building, an office for administrative staff and the chancellor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photo: UNCSJP/Screenshot
Elyas Mohammed, president of the North Carolina Democratic Party’s (NCDP) Muslim Caucus, recently posted on social media, “Zionists = Modern day #Nazis.”
Mohammed, also a member of the NCDP’s State Executive Committee (SEC), posted, “#Zionists are a threat to #Humanity.” He has publicly referred to Israel as “IsraHell.”
The Muslim Caucus was founded in 2024, is in the review process, and seeking final approval by the party.
Jibril Hough, first vice president of this same caucus, publicly said, “Zionism is a branch of racism/white supremacy and must be fought with the same intensity.” He has described Zionists as the “worst of humanity.”
Numerous leaders and members of the NCDP are out of step with the Democratic Party’s platform, which expresses its support for Israel nearly 30 times, prominently leading with an endorsement of Israel as “a Jewish and democratic state.”
I contacted NCDP leadership for comment on Mohammed’s posts, including Governor Josh Stein and his Communications Director; State Party Chair Anderson Clayton; and First Vice Chair Jonah Garson. None responded.
The NCDP’s acquiescence and silence concerning the extreme and hateful remarks made by some of its leaders about Israel is anticipated at this point. The NCDP has been targeting Israel for years instead of focusing on statewide issues. For example, on Saturday, June 28, 2025 — during Shabbat — the NCDP’s State Executive Council passed six anti-Israel resolutions.
Rather than publicly clarify these actions, the NCDP quickly removed information about the resolutions from public view. This decision, or coverup, has left many with the impression that the party is attempting to bury the issue. Before the resolutions were taken offline, I made a copy.
One of the resolutions that passed, titled “Resolution for Democratic Unity,” actually claimed that Israel had taken “Palestinian hostages.”
Just a few months after this resolution passed, Mohammed shared a grotesque post on Facebook, suggesting that the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 could or should be considered “prisoners of war.” The post continued, “If they [the hostages] were CIVILIANS, ISRAEL IS GUILTY OF A WAR CRIME FOR PLACING THEM THERE.”
Many Democrats have left the party over its obsessive focus on Israel. Former Raleigh City Council member Stefanie Mendell recently switched her party affiliation to Unaffiliated, telling me:
While in my heart I am a Democrat, after the anti-Israel resolutions passed at last year’s NC Democratic Party convention, I am no longer comfortable being associated with the party. I feel like they bent over backwards to focus negatively on Israel when there were so many more critical issues that North Carolinians care about — the cost of living, education, healthcare, etc. I will vote for, campaign for, and support individual Democrats, but I will no longer contribute to the party itself until and unless they stand up to this extremist fringe that seems more intent on virtue signaling than on electing people who can positively impact the people in our state.
According to the NCDP Plan of Organization, SEC members, such as Mohammed, are expected to uphold the values of the Code of Conduct.
The “Code of Conduct for the North Carolina Democratic Party Officers and Leaders” clearly states that leaders are expected to act in ways that do not “negatively impact other members … or the party’s reputation” and “to be sensitive to other people’s feelings.” When communicating electronically, the Code of Conduct encourages leaders to ask, “Am I acting in the party’s best interest?”
Leaders are also asked to consider, “Is what I am doing in line with our Plan of Organization and the Spirit of the Party Platform?”
According to a document recently posted to the NCDP’s website, “The Muslim Caucus is being recommended for Conditional Approval until the Summer SEC Meeting.”
I firmly believe that the Muslim community, as with any religious group, should be robustly represented and included in government and political parties. The question I ask is: What will the North Carolina Democratic Party do concerning caucus leaders who are making hateful and divisive statements that contribute to Democrats leaving the party?
Lisa Jewel, president of the NC Democratic Jewish Caucus, told me:
We understand that Mr. Mohammed is resigning his position as Chair of The NCDP Muslim Caucus. It is our hope that, under its next Chair, as the Muslim Caucus works its way through the approval process — and beyond — it will pivot its focus and efforts, to uplifting democracy here in North Carolina.
Last summer, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt, and former Democratic Gov. and senatorial candidate Roy Cooper expressed their opposition to their party’s anti-Israel resolutions. It is now the moment for Democratic Party leaders at the state level to announce a reset and reclaim the party from the divisive, anti-Israel extremists within it.
The North Carolina Democratic Party needs to decide if they want to represent all Democrats in the state or just those Democrats who hate Israel.
Peter Reitzes writes about antisemitism in North Carolina and beyond.
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Anti-Israel Activists Prepare New Flotilla to Break Israel’s Gaza Blockade
A Palestinian flag is seen as people gather at the port of Ermoupolis before the departure of two sailing boats, Electra and Oxygen, part of the Global Sumud Flotilla aiming to reach Gaza and break Israel’s naval blockade, on Syros island, Greece, Sept. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Giorgos Solaris
Organizers of a pro-Palestinian flotilla said Thursday they will make a renewed attempt next month to reach the Gaza Strip with more than 100 boats, once again challenging Israel’s blockade of the war-torn territory.
During an event at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in South Africa, the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) announced that it will embark on a new “mission” to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza in late March, with speakers urging the international community to prevent Israeli forces from intercepting the operation.
The anti-Israel flotilla represents the latest attempt by activists to defy Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, even as Israel has reopened the Rafah crossing to allow Palestinians to travel to Egypt for medical care.
Before the war, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt served as the only direct exit for most Gazans and a crucial entry point for humanitarian aid. The crossing has been largely closed since May 2024 and remains under Israeli military control on the Gazan side.
COGAT, the Israeli military unit responsible for humanitarian coordination, said the crossing will reopen in both directions for Gaza residents on foot only, with operations coordinated alongside Egypt and the European Union.
The GSF described its latest initiative as a “coordinated, nonviolent effort to challenge the illegal Israeli siege on Gaza, confront global complicity, and stand alongside Palestinians.”
According to organizers, more than 1,000 activists — including medical doctors, war crimes investigators, and engineers — will take part in the flotilla. A land convoy is also expected to bring thousands more from countries such as Tunisia and Egypt, while the boats depart from Spain, Tunisia, and Italy toward the enclave.
“This time, we expect hundreds of thousands to sign up and to mobilize entry through Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and every other feasible border to reach occupied Palestine and Gaza,” Mandla Mandela, grandson of the late South African president and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, said in a statement.
“We want to mobilize the entire global community to join forces with us,” he continued.
The anti-Israel campaigners have also organized previous flotillas carrying symbolic humanitarian aid, including a similar mission last year that Israeli officials repeatedly denounced as a publicity stunt.
About 50 vessels carrying 500 activists took part in last year’s mission, but all were intercepted by Israeli forces and deported, including Mandela, climate activist Greta Thunberg, and European Parliament member Rima Hassan.