Yes, I do have tattoos in places you can’t see.

“My Body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.”

— actor and musician Johnny Depp

When I was 16, I managed to almost get through an entire year without my parents knowing I had gotten a belly button ring piercing.

Then, one day, I was in the kitchen with my dad after school. As I was reaching up to grab a glass from a cupboard, my shirt hiked up above my belly button and my then-flat-AF stomach.

“You have a belly button piercing?” my father exclaimed. “Yuck.”

Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, I didn’t get into any trouble for it. In fact, to this day, I’m still wondering if my dad saying “You have a belly button piercing?” was a question or a statement.

In grade six, I really was a trendsetter when it came to ear piercings. My mother had had a friend who had double pierced her ears, and surprisingly, I asked my mother if I could do the same.

Shockingly, she said “Yes!” So, I was the first grade six student at my school with double ear piercings, which even the teachers pointed out enviously. Flash forward a thousand years and..

At present, I have three ear piercings on my left ear, two on my right, along with a round ear piercing on my right earlobe high up in the cartilage area, that I also got when I was in my teens. It has been there for so many years, I barely, if ever, remember it’s even there, until someone points it out.

In Part One we talked about the importance of pens and ink and why females should and need to own a snazzy jazzy pen especially when in meetings.

So, in part two, we are also going to talk about a different kind of ink — body ink! Yes, I am a Tattooed Mom (noun) meaning I’m like a normal mom, but so much cooler!

I have two tattoos. One I absolutely hate and want to get removed. The other, hidden on my body where my parents couldn’t see it — on my ass — that I got when I was also 16 with my high school boyfriend.

My high school sweetheart was…in a band. I know. I know. So textbook rom-com!

So, I was basically the lead singer’s groupie, like one of my favourite movies, “Almost Famous,” starring one of my favourite actresses Kate Hudson, who was nominated for an Oscar for being a true band groupie.

On my tuckus (butt) I have a small heart shaped music note —one that I had managed to trick my kids, for years, when they were just little things who showered with me, into thinking it was just a “stick-on” tattoo, leading them to ask, “How come yours stays for months and mine only stay for three days?”

That may have been the day I stopped showering with them. But now? Yes, as my body gets older, and when I’m on a beach, my bikini bottoms become smaller, you can see that small butt tattoo (What do you want from me? I’m on a beach! Do you expect me to wear a snowsuit?)

Plus, those with tattoos and piercings are way more fun to see naked.

My rock star boy band high school boyfriend had gotten a much larger “matching” music note, surrounded by flames of fire on his chest. I don’t regret having that heart shaped music note on my ass — aside from its unoriginality — because…I just don’t. (But I will admit I’m happy to not be someone who has their ex’s name tattooed on my body.

The other tattoo?I do: re:gret regret. I got it with a friend at the time…a friend who I have not seen or spoken to in 20 years. Not only is it now ugly and fading, but unlike getting a tattoo with my high school sweetheart, who I truly adored, it has no meaning. If you asked me what it means, I would have to answer, “It means I wanted it at the time, so I got it.”

For years, I have kinda wanted another tattoo. But of what? And should I? I would get a matching tattoo with my daughter (I know. Also, incredibly unique #not) but alas, the gal doesn’t even want her ears pierced, let alone something as permanent as a tattoo, let alone with her mother.

I admit I did laugh when I saw one of my exes — and not the good kind of ex —with a tattoo on his arm written in Chinese, if only because he neither speaks Chinese, has never been to China, and will have to spend the rest of his life answering, “What does that mean?” (Ah, re:venge!)

I also, admittedly, didn’t like the placement. As a proud Jew, seeing tattoos where Holocaust survivors were tattooed — involuntarily —  with numbers gives me an “ick” and distasteful  feeling (although no judgement. It’s your body! So Ink if you want to!)

But now there seems to be a sweet spot solution to those who want body ink.

A little history lesson? Tattooing is an explicit prohibition from the Torah. So, from the Jewish perspective, our bodies are to be viewed as “a precious gift on loan from God, to be entrusted into our care and not our personal property to do with as we choose.”

And for years I have felt horribly guilty — Oy! Guilt! Another Jewish trait passed down in our D.N.A. — thinking that because I have tattoos, I would be prohibited from being buried in a Jewish cemetery. I, of course, rationalized this by thinking, “I’ll be dead anyway.” Which I would be. And, I’m not sure I even want to be buried in a cemetery.

So, this week, in Writers RE:Books admiRE:s author Chava Pearl Lansky writes about the new trend of permanent jewelry which she writes could be a solution for “anyone who is tattoo- or piercing-phobic, but is looking for the kind of rush that those body alterations provide — particularly those urged against tattoos or piercings for reasons connected to their Jewish identity.”

Now that the High Holidays are done, I highly suggest you sign up to Hey Alma’s newsletters for modern and fun reads by clicking here!  

Some Jews Have an Aversion to Tattoos. This New Trend Might Be the Perfect Alternative.

 For me, permanent jewelry is a chance to commemorate a moment of change or significance in my life.

 By Chava Pearl Lansky  September 28, 2022 [Originally published in Hey Alma, which you can subscribe to here]

Every so often, I feel the urge to mark an event in my life with a change to my appearance: After my bat mitzvah, my best friend and I got second holes pierced in our ears; before I left for boarding school, I traded my long hair for a pixie cut; when I started graduate school, I opted for clear-framed glasses; and when President Biden was sworn in on January 20, 2021, I took the train to lower Manhattan to get third holes pierced in my ears.

These moments have served different purposes, in turn helping me to regain agency over my body in situations otherwise outside my control and providing daily, tangible reminders of new chapters. But as someone with a relatively minimalistic sense of style — and whose Jewish parents have cautioned them against tattoos and facial piercings since birth — there have only been so many options for experimentation.

That changed last year when I started seeing the trend of so-called permanent jewelry popping up on my Instagram feed. And so, for my 28th birthday, I made an appointment at Brooklyn-founded jewelry store Catbird to get “zapped” and walked out with a delicate gold chain welded in an unbroken circle around my wrist. After 10 months of staring at my bracelet day in and day out, a routine surgery required a harried nurse to snip it off with a pair of office scissors. Two weeks later, I returned to Catbird, where it was promptly returned to its rightful place above my right hand. The ease of removal, and the fact that it left behind no trace, made me wonder if permanent jewelry could be a solution for anyone who is tattoo- or piercing-phobic, but is looking for the kind of rush that those body alterations provide — particularly those urged against tattoos or piercings for reasons connected to their Jewish identity.

 So where does that Jewish anti-body modification bias come from? “I think everyone’s heard the urban legend that you can’t be buried in Jewish cemeteries with tattoos,” says Rabbi Rebecca Hornstein, citing a rumour I, too, grew up parroting to my friends. “It’s not true.” Yet Hornstein explains that there is a verse in Torah against making incisions in your skin that has come to be interpreted as a prohibition against tattoos.

“There are a lot of earlier rabbinic texts that interpret the prohibition as being just about tattoos related to idolatry, and some that say it’s just writing the name of God that’s prohibited,” says Hornstein, who is the executive director of Boston Workers Circle, a secular Jewish social justice community. “As with everything in Judaism, there are a lot of voices throughout history interpreting things in different ways.”

The other reason so many Jews avoid tattoos is in reaction to the forced tattooing of the Holocaust. “That recent historical trauma gives the decision additional weight,” says Hornstein, adding that as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, when she started getting tattoos, she kept her arms covered around the last living survivor in her family. “Eventually I forgot, and she never said anything about it. I think for her, it was like, young people are going to do whatever they’re going to do,” she says.

The aversion to piercings, Hornstein adds, is more related to the idea of tzniut, or modesty. My own grandmother, who was born into a traditionally observant family in the early 1920s, didn’t have her ears pierced for this reason (though she was a fan of clip-on earrings).

But for Hornstein and others, making semi-permanent changes to one’s body fulfills a spiritual need and offers an opportunity to express one’s identities, Jewish or otherwise. Like me, she also sees it as a chance to commemorate a change: to memorialize a loved one or reclaim agency after an illness or bodily trauma. For college student Arielle Silvan, who recently got a welded bracelet with a friend as a symbol of their bond, jewelry plays a similar role. “I have a lot of sentimental jewelry,” she adds. “And I’ve treated each of my piercings, and the permanent bracelet, as moments of significance.”

 Jewelry designer Sophie Ratner, whose company hosts permanent jewelry events, says that the customers who come in to get welded bracelets tend to be much more excited than other shoppers. “It’s something that feels unique. They’re not something you can walk into any jewelry store and get,” she says, adding that the laser equipment required to do the zapping (which connects two pieces of metal without heat, providing a safe and painless experience) can be prohibitively expensive.

 The lack of accessibility is part of why she believes it’s become so trendy. For her company’s events, Ratner collaborates with a Hasidic friend who works in New York’s Diamond District and owns his own laser welding machine. Ratner — who got a tattoo with her twin sister at age 24, but hasn’t come up with another design that holds as much meaning since — says tattoos and welded jewelry certainly require different levels of commitment. “It’s not like a tattoo, you don’t have to think about it that much,” she says. “I think the bracelets feels special because they stay with you, but it’s not forever.”

Growing up, my parents explained their aversion to tattoos and (some) piercings as being against the Jewish idea of preserving our bodies as unmarked and whole. Now, during the High Holidays, season marked by the symbol of circles, I glance down at my wrist and think that maybe welded bracelets can play into that wholeness. “There’s a lot in our tradition around circles, completeness — trying to create something whole,” adds Hornstein.

As cultural norms change around tattoos and piercings, it seems that future generations of Jewish children will likely grow up with different understandings about the relationship between Jewishness and permanent bodily changes. We may very well move away from, as Silvan puts it, “not wanting to do something to my appearance that my grandma would shrill at.” 

Either way, making changes to one’s body can hold great meaning and significance. And the emergence of welded jewelry just adds another colour to the palette of self-expression. “It’s about expressing an intangible thing in a super tangible way,” says Hornstein. “And that can be a really powerful experience.”

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Written By Chava Pearl Lansky

Chava Pearl Lansky (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based writer. She covers culture, with emphases on dance and food, and holds an M.A. in Biography and Memoir. She can be found on Instagram here and to learn more about her, you can check out her website here.

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