by the Jerusalem Talmud and is generally the accepted ruling today. However, R' Moshe Feinstein permitted divorced and widowed women to uncover their hair in cases of great need, for example, when a head covering might interfere with dating or obtaining a job. Exact rulings in such cases vary depending on the community and the individual's situation. In Yemen, unmarried girls covered their hair like their Muslim peers; however, upon Yemeni Jews' emigration to Israel and other places, this custom has been abandoned. Aharon Roth praised this custom. Magen Avraham ruled that while unmarried women need not cover their hair, they must braid it so that it is not disheveled. This ruling is practiced in some Hasidic communities nowadays. When a woman gets married, opinions differ regarding when exactly she must begin covering her head: after betrothal (rare today), after the chuppah ceremony, after yichud, or only after the couple has spent a night together. Even according to the more stringent opinions, the bridal veil (which partly covers the hair) may be considered sufficient cover for the remainder of the ceremony. Non-Orthodox Judaism Conservative and Reform Judaism do not generally require women to wear head coverings. Some more traditional Conservative synagogues may ask that married women cover their heads during services. However, some more liberal Conservative synagogues suggest that women, married or not, wear head-coverings similar to those worn by men (the kippah/yarmulke); and some require it (or require it only for women receiving honors or leading services from the bimah) – not for modesty, but as a feminist gesture of egalitarianism. In the 21st century, some non-Orthodox Jewish women, mainly in North America, began covering their heads or hair with scarves, kippot, or headbands. Reasons given for doing so included as an act of spiritual devotion, as expression of ethnic identity, as an act of resistance to a culture that normalizes the exposure of the body, or as a feminist reclamation of modest dress, a practice sometimes seen as non- or anti-feminist. Mitpaḥat Mitpaḥat (Hebrew: miṭpaḥat), also called a tichel ( tikhl), is the headscarf worn covering the hair. Mitpaḥot can range from a plain scarf of any material worn over the hair to elaborate head coverings using multiple fabrics and tying techniques. According to Ibn Ezra, already in Biblical times, Israelite women wore a form of cloth head covering similar to that worn by Muslim women in his