There are certain Friday rituals observed by Jewish women across continents and with wildly varying levels of spiritual enthusiasm: challah, candles, and enough food to sustain a small Balkan republic until Tuesday, even though only six people are coming. One is “avoiding carbs”; another has the appetite of someone on Ozempic; and a third has neglected to mention that she is vegetarian, vegan, or following some other tiresome dietary regime the hostess was apparently expected to detect by prophecy.

That third person is usually me, realising far too late that the salads are decorative, the vegetables have been deployed largely as garnish, and I am about to construct an entire meal from one potato and a branch of broccoli. I then spend dinner trying not to let my hostess notice either my lack of appetite or the grim, laboured vigilance with which I ration the potato, as though it is the final carbohydrate on earth and the broccoli has been taken hostage.

Then there is the ladies’ wash and blow-dry.

Professionally disciplined hair creates the impression that the rest of one’s life is managed similarly. It is not. But the hair need not testify.

On Friday afternoon, I entered a narrow salon on High Street in Sydney with my bonus mom: a few chairs, two washbasins and the entire Russian language being discharged from several semi-automatic weapons.

Russian ricocheted from chair to basin, mirror to ceiling and back into my ears. I understood none of it, but the tone suggested betrayal, overpriced fish and a daughter-in-law who had again failed to telephone.

Around me, mature ladies underwent perms, colour rinses and blowouts with the concentration of diplomats preventing nuclear war.

Foil crackled. Rollers clicked. Hairdryers roared:

Civilisation was being held together one lacquered fringe at a time.

Through the steamed shopfront, High Street became a silent film: shopping bags, puffer jackets, a child being towed by one arm and a man wearing the expression of someone who had just remembered the one thing he had been specifically told not to forget.

Inside, time followed an older calendar: ordinary time, Jewish time and colour-processing time.

Colour-processing time is the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)