Jews with Tattoos

For Some Jews, It Only Sounds Like ‘Taboo’

ROBERTA KAPLAN, 71, has never been a fan of tattoos. “I’m a very Jewish person,” she said. “I was told from way, way back that you’re not supposed to desecrate your body.”

Ms. Kaplan ordered her five children to renounce tattoos. (What would neighbors at synagogue think?) Her children, in turn, did the same (every third teenager may have an ankle tattoo souvenir from spring break, but that doesn’t make it right by the Torah).

By the time Ms. Kaplan’s daughter Liz Carnes, 49, had teenage daughters who wanted body art, Ms. Carnes knew how to dissuade them. “I’d say, ‘If you get a tattoo, you can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery,’ â€ said Ms. Carnes, the owner of a video equipment company in Carlsbad, Calif. “For no real reason, just that’s what my parents told me.”

Nearly every Jew, from those who go to synagogue only on holidays to those who dutifully follow Jewish law, has heard that adage. It has deterred many from being inked, even as tattoos have become widespread among N.B.A. players and housewives alike.

According to a 2007 poll of 1,500 people conducted by the Pew Research Center, 36 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds and 40 percent of 26- to 40-year-olds have at least one tattoo. Still, even Larry David was so haunted by the cemetery edict that he wrote an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which he pays off a gravedigger to have his mother reburied in a Jewish cemetery despite a small tattoo on her behind.

But the edict isn’t true. The eight rabbinical scholars interviewed for this article, from institutions like the Jewish Theological Seminary and Yeshiva University, said it’s an urban legend, most likely started because a specific cemetery had a policy against tattoos. Jewish parents and grandparents picked up on it and over time, their distaste for tattoos was presented as scriptural doctrine.

At first, Nicki Carnes, daughter of Liz and granddaughter of Roberta, listened to her elders. “I took what they said to heart,” said Nicki Carnes, 29, who works for her mother’s company. “Then as I got older, I started doing my own research. I asked different rabbis, and they each had their own take.”

By the time, three years ago, she had an abstract rendering of her cat tattooed on her wrist, she wasn’t sure she was in the wrong. After all, she had figured out on her own what has yet to become commonly known among Jews: that rabbis disagree about just how bad it is to get inked.

Still, you try confronting your grandmother. Instead, Nicki Carnes hid her abstract cat for months, until one day her sleeve rode up. “My grandma grabbed my arm and just stared,” she said. “She gave me that blank, ‘You broke my heart’ look.”

Old myths die hard, and many tattooed Jews in their 20’s and 30’s say they often are criticized by other Jews, both relatives and strangers. Some, like Nicki Carnes and her sister, Rebecca, who now also has a tattoo, say that being permanently marked was just something they wanted. Others say they were tattooed to rebel or, surprisingly, that they wanted a Jewish tattoo as a way of connecting with their religious and cultural identity.

Andy Abrams, a filmmaker, has spent five years making a documentary called “Tattoo Jew.” In his interviews with dozens of Jews with body art, he’s noticed the prevalence of Jewish-themed tattoos — from Stars of David to elaborate Holocaust memorials, surprising since one reason Jewish culture opposes tattoos is that Jews were involuntarily marked in concentration camps.

Mr. Abrams has even seen tattoos that crack jokes, like the one on the back of Ari Bacharach’s neck: the word “Kosher” above a pig, an ironic statement about identity. “The people I interviewed are trying to express their Judaism, or connect with God or their Jewish roots,” said Mr. Abrams, 38, who lives in Los Angeles and calls himself a nonpracticing Orthodox Jew. “They’re taking this prohibited act and using it to feel more Jewish.”

Take Marshal Klaven, 29. While studying in Israel as a teenager, he decided to become a rabbi. For the first time, “it became not just the Jewish people, but my Jewish people,” he said. This sense of belonging inspired him to get the first of his three tattoos, a Star of David and a dove.

“For me, it’s about cultural pride and connecting in this very tangible, very visible way to a part of our lives that isn’t so tangible,” said Mr. Klaven, who is now a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and is writing his thesis on tattooing in the Jewish tradition.
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