ABSTRACT
In the middle ages the dress-problem was always presenting itself for solution to Jews and Christians alike 1. Luther declared that men might masquerade as women for sport and play, but not as a usual thing in sober, earnest moments. A great fifteenth-century Rabbi Z maintained a similar attitude, and opinion was much divided on the question of the lawfulness of men and women commingling freely and wearing masks to avoid recognition on Purim and at wedding festivities. 'Everyone who fears God will exhort the members of his household, and those who defer to his opinions, to avoid such frivolities,' says a medieval Jewish purist whose views were widely shared, though popular opinion took the opposite direction. But public opinion, as already pointed out, allowed ~his laxity if it were occasional and not habitual. Every effort was made by Jews to differentiate the ordinary attire of a man from that of a woman. The straps of the phylacteries used in prayer were never made of red leather, lest' they would look like the dress of women 3.' From a similar motive, the Jewish men in some localities abstained from donning garments of coloured wool or linen; dyed silks did not fall within the same category of forbidden stuffs·. But though there was great variety in local custom on all such matters, disguises which rendered it difficult to discern the wearer's . x might be freely worn on journeys for the protection of women 5. Jewesses assumed false beards and girded themselves with swords
during sieges to be mistaken for men, and thus be saved from insult. They also put on the characteristic garb of nuns to ensure a similar immunity 1. Male Israelites were forced to adopt similar devices owing to the hazards which beset a Jewish traveller in the middle ages. They dressed as Christian priests, joined pilgrimages and sang Latin psalms, to avoid betraying the dangerous fact of their Jewish identity 2. Similarly, at a later period, Jews who resided under Islamic governors, wore white garments on their journeys in order to pass as Moslems 3.
