Liturgical Travels: How to Dress in Israel

Back to my travel story: In Israel, there were many customs! "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" is an old saying. It's a good one too, if you wish to be a good guest in your host country!


Me, feeling pretty "cultural" wearing a scarf in Ceaserea

Before we left on our adventure, we had a pre-trip meeting and were all briefed on some of the customs by our tour guide. (Well, actually, we were briefed by JP, a fellow pilgrim who took the initiative when none of us could get in contact with our tour guide, which was highly frustrating! I believe JP threatened to withdrawal all our money if she didn't come through with some info! Haha!) JP awesomely took control and related to us the guidelines which were finally sent by Angela from the tour company.

Anyway, one of the things which was highly discussed was appropriate clothing to wear in Israel.

No shorts, period.
No mini-skirts.
No cleavage (women only! Ha!)
No bare arms (again,directed towards women).
No bare shoulders either.
Some websites even suggested that we should not wear bright colors...?? Really?
No flaunty jewelry. Keep all necklaces, earrings and rings subtle.
Everyone would be expected to wear head coverings in the sites under the patronage of other-than-Catholics, such as the Orthodox, Muslims or Jews. Men would wear yamakas, women needed scarves or hats. If you didn't have one, it would be provided for you at the site (yuck!).

It was a bit stressful to pack, as a lot of my clothes are considered "cap sleeves", which means they don't quite come down as far as a t-shirt sleeve and are colorful. I did some quick shopping and found some pull-overs which were super-duper lightweight in dark colors, plus I bought a couple of scarves which I planned to throw over my head or shoulders as needed.

Mix and matching all my scarves

It turned out that the actuality of it was much less strict than our pre-tour instructions, so I wore the scarves around my neck much more than on my head! Haha!

As it turned out, the thing I did noticed about the dress of the Israeli people was: Anything Goes.

We saw all manner of styles and colors and headgear and clothing choices in both men and women! I thought is was most interesting and strange to see very western-style clothing mixed with traditional clothing, like a small child wearing an Elmo shirt but her mom wearing a hijab (see "know your female Islamic headdress").

And although black clothing did seem to dominate, I was surprised to see some colorful costumes!

On more than one occasion I was struck by the "old vs new" or "ancient vs modern" mixes I saw.

Like for instance, a very orthodox-type dressed person on a cell phone.

I guess it's silly for that to seem odd to me. Maybe because I'm not from the big city and we don't have a lot of Eastern people where I live. The only people I've seen dress "old-timey" are the Amish or Mennonites and they don't use technology. But the Israeli people certainly do.

Well, regardless, I saw women in all kinds of dress from the completely covered with only their eyes showing to some skimpily dressed teenie-boppers. And men ranged from orthodox men-in-black to sheks to blue jean clad boys.