I recently read Rabbi Ya'aqob Menashe's Torah Minute on women and wigs.
R. Menashe, I suspect, is Iraqi and a follower of R. Yoseph Hayyim a"h, the Ben Ish Hai.
The rabbi is associated with, perhaps is the rabbi of, Midrash Ben Ish Hai of Queens and Great Neck NY.
In any event, R. Menashe brings down not a Sefardi or Mizrahi authority, but Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Halberstam, Grand Rabbi of Sanz-Klauzenberg as a source for banning wigs.
R. Ovadia Yosef has railed against wigs on several occasions, including one time when he allegedly said a man should divorce a wife who insisted on wearing a wig.
R. Ovadia also is Iraqi.
I started looking for Sefardi hakhamim who ruled on wigs.
Nothing.
Checked several books on my bookshelves.
Checked the Internet using Google and Dogpile.
Nothing.
The reasons I was looking are two:
One: North African minhagim often are at odds with Mizrachim (Iraqi, Syrian, etc.) minhagim. I have a book (דברי שלום ואמת) that has as its sole purpose to note where Yalkut Yosef (one of R. Ovadia's books) is out of synch with North African traditions.
Two, I know of two Moroccan-born women who wear a wig. One lived in France for a time; did she adopt it when she lived in France? No idea.
Why do some rabbis ban the wig?
Several reasons.
The most popular seems to be that some wigs look better than the woman's real hair underneath. Since the wig is supposed to suggest modesty, wearing something possibly provocative negates the purpose of the false hair.
Another reason advanced is the possibility that the hair - particularly that from the Indian subcontinent, was dedicated to a local god, thereby making it forbidden to a Jew.
I'm left with two questions.
One: How do North African rabbis rule on the wig.
Two: What about a woman who is losing or has thinning hair; might a "non-provocative" wig be considered permisssable for the woman's mental well-being?
For what it's worth, the wigs of the two Moroccan women who wear them really are ugly; no question that the women are not trying to catch anyone's eye but their husbands' (eye).
If anyone can cite a ruling by a North African ("from Morocco to Libya") rabbi - pro or con - regarding wigs, please do so to Yohanon.Glenn@gmail.com .
