HEADS AND TAILS
Izmir, Turkey
There can be unpleasant surprises Ms. Coya, to tell you the truth.
Did you bring these as short hair?
They're between 35-45 centimetres.
OK, there's tape measure here, we'll see how long they are.
Sure, I'm not saying anything. Please.
Get what you want. No problem.
I'm not saying anything.
You keep looking, I'll smoke a cigarette.
Touch this hair, how does it feel?
You mean it's mixed?
No, jagged.
OK, I get it.
They are 30 centimetres, Ms. Coya... They are short, 1.5 kilos.
Come on, sit down.
As if these are long, you say don't look at the 30 cm ones.
Here we go.
Ms. Coya put the bullet in our heads again. But it's OK, no problem!
Don't you worry about it.
You too.
Good that you only brought the 50 cm long measuring tape.
That's what I had in my bag.
That's what I had in my bag, Ms. Coya.
You didn't tie it right.
Mr. Yasar, we'll never have a proper deal with you.
But why do you say that?
These are 38 cm long. You can also measure it by yourself.
But please...
I had to rush, I only had these at hand.
Are you really thinking to sell this hair for 750?
I'm just asking.
That one isn't necessary.
The longest is 37 cm here!
Just a minute, let me throw these away.
I bought hair like a blind person.
Only by sensing, touching...
feeling, smelling...
Rubbing my hands like this, I bought hair.
HAND
The trade business in the world is in the Jewish hands.
Right, Ms. Oya?
Why there isn't enough money in Israel then?
Oh sure! We are all super rich in Israel! Don't you know?
We are all super rich because we are Jewish!
You don't get me.
Actually you're right, the richest in the US are Jewish.
But you shouldn't exaggerate being Jewish.
You don't get me.
Now, how much do you want?
Don't ask 1000, ask more!
Add one more zero, ask 10.000!
Sure, we own holdings!
Oh yes, we'll buy a bank with this money!
We're people buying and selling hair.
We buy hair, we sell hair.
Just simple people.
If we were from the higher ranks, we wouldn't be doing this business.
No human is simple, Ms. Oya.
God doesn't create simple people.
People make themselves simple.
Right.
It's true for you, me, Africans, Japanese, Chinese...
Put Africans and others aside now.
- Now we're talking about... - Business, right?
We're talking about Jews.
Who?
Jews, Jews...
Remember, you said Jews are rich...
If we wouldn't work with Israelis, not only you but other customers too...
Why would I do this business, Ms. Oya?
Am I the one who misunderstands?
When you say this, it's clear you see me as a Jew...
as a tourist, as a non-Turkish and as a woman...
Please stop speaking, I really get mad.
Oh, Ms. Oya...
It's the first time you bring such bad hair.
It must be leftover hair.
No, Ms. Oya, there's no old hair here.
It's oil-like, I swear.
OK, then let's buy it to cook.
You made me laugh!
May God make you always laugh, Ms. Oya.
May God make you laugh too.
Don't speak now, don't!
OK, I shut up Ms. Oya.
The people I work with call me Ms. Oya.
I transformed from Coya to Oya.
I speak Turkish with the people from whom I buy hair.
I speak Hebrew with my sister who I work with.
Sometimes, our other sister passes by and we ask her opinion.
We talk in Spanish with her.
People sit right next to us.
We talk about them and the hair they brought.
They don't understand us.
But when they speak, we understand everything.
This doesn't work. (Hebrew)
This one as well. No, no, no...
This is garbage, this is hair.
These are useless for us (Turkish).
Tell me how much we're talking about here. (Hebrew)
Let's talk Coya, come on!
This is 3 kilos, right?
It's 2.6 kilos and we won't buy it.
Ms. Oya, I'll tell you something.
Tell me, sweetheart.
Now, I'll give you these for 500 dollars.
And these for 900 dollars.
Why did the price of these go 100 dollars up in a second?
What do you mean?
This goes down, that goes up... How come?
Let me explain...
Look at me...
I'm looking at you.
Forgive me, I talk like a peasant.
Come on, we're all the same.
I sell you these hair for what I paid for them.
Sure.
This is really what I paid for them.
You know what?
I really don't believe you.
Don't tell me to buy these to throw them away over there.
I won't take them...
I'll neither throw them away.
It's your hair, throw it away yourself.
We're talking about 20 kilos of hair.
I'll take the remaining 2.5 kilos, OK.
How much do you want for these hair?
Let's start from here.
You said it yourself
Different price for short hair...
You come here with the idea of getting 16 thousand dollars...
Even God wouldn't accept this.
Turkish people are difficult to do business.
They don't keep their promises.
They forget what they previously tell.
They keep changing the prices.
However, they really respect Coya.
They talk to her respectfully.
They respect me a little less.
TV: One of the republican candidates in the US presidential elections, Donald...
Ms. Oya, do you live in Tel Aviv?
Yes.
The capital?
Tel Aviv isn't the capital.
Is it not?
No, Jerusalem is the capital.
Is Tel Aviv big, Ms. Oya?
You can cross the whole Israel in 5 hours.
How big can it be?
It's smaller than the half of Istanbul.
So, it's smaller than Konya.
Indeed.
Our biggest city is Konya.
The whole Israel is like the quarter of Istanbul.
That one is a different city, this one is a different city.
You cannot understand that.
We cross the road and we're in another city.
Between Izmir-Istanbul, it's 9 hours by bus and 1 hour by plane.
Here you just cross the road, from here to there.
I came here from Turkey at the age of nineteen.
My father, mother and two sisters.
We were three sisters at our arrival.
Life was quite difficult in the beginning.
Here, it was different than the Turkish mentality.
I knew everything was cheaper in Turkey...
I started suitcase trading.
I would buy children clothes from Izmir, Kemeralti.
and sell them here.
But this wasn't enough for my sister Sima and me.
Sima had a neighbour who was a wigmaker.
She told me: "Your Turkish is so good"
"Maybe you can bring some hair."
We had no idea about hair.
So, it was difficult in the beginning.
We only knew we had hair on our heads.
and that there's curly hair, straight hair...
Do I have to tell all these in Turkish?
We had no clue
about procedure of bringing hair from abroad.
I guess it's like jumping into the sea without knowing how to swim.
Now, listen to what we talk about.
Everybody wants to know who they really are
I search for a way to tell my feelings
Life is a song
Come Alma, come...
I went to pick up my granddaughter from school.
The teacher asks me: "Are you the Turkish grandmother?"
I said: "Yes."
She told me: "How proud she's that you're Turkish!"
Apparently she says: "If my grandmother is Turkish..."
"I'm also Turkish."
This is fine, right?
Did Alma ever see the hair?
Yes.
What does she say?
Not much.
When she first saw it, she was irritated.
As if she saw so many heads.
It's true, when you first see hair like this...
She's a child, after all.
Not that, but it's quite disgusting.
It reminds what Germans did to Jews and Armenians.
They would cut their hair...
What about this? This is good.
Ms. Oya, see, Jews and Turks protested Trump together.
What happened?
They said: "Two religions, one voice"
Yes, they protested Trump together.
We heard hair was sold in a village in Turkey.
We started to go to the houses there.
Hair sellers showed us their hair, we checked them out.
We saw that Turkish hair is of high quality.
Both Sima and me started to understand from hair, professionally.
As someone who never paid attention to hair...
I started to check hair as the first thing, when I see a woman.
I must be a very brave person.
It's not women's business.
They also say this.
"It's not women business, how can you do it?"
"Congratulations!"
Women are tricked easily.
But your aunt Coya cannot be tricked!
PRINCE WIGSHOP
I always dream about hair.
Good hair, bad hair...
Hair haunts dreams.
It's like addiction.
I quit everything, I couldn't quit hair.
You just can't.
It's like a disease.
If you take the bag and start doing it, you also can't quit it!
TV: We're going through very critical days. This attack was done in such times.
When I was 11 years old, I was shouting at the neighborhood.
"I buy hair, I buy silver..."
We used to buy hair like that.
But now we buy it from hairdressers to sell to the wig makers.
Some people send it abroad
To Israel, United States
The best hair goes to Israel.
In some regions, like the Aegean side, where olive oil is common
Hair is more resilient, well-kept and of high quality.
But, look at my hair, it's not well-kept at all.
But you would admire if you would see my hair long.
It was fluffy like this.
My face would disappear.
But now I cut my hair short.
One day somebody told I looked like a woman, then I stopped growing my hair.
My hair is very black.
It's actually a very beautiful black.
I was born with very black hair.
But is it suitable for wigs? No!
I don't talk about the whites that come with age.
But even when I was young with long hair
nobody would buy my hair, because it's thick.
Even when I touch my own hair, or my daughters'...
I just think of business.
We're just like train wagons.
The one who gets most of the money is the wigmaker, right?
Wigmakers.
No, I think the second hand also earns quite some money.
Do you know who earns the least? We do.
Because we're third or fourth hands.
You pay for it and I pay you to get it.
I'm the third or fourth hand.
The hairdresser is the first hand.
I'm the second hand, you're the third, right.
Right.
PLACE
My sister and I were wondering what to do...
We decided to go to Bnei Brak.
We started to enter each wigshop.
Without being embarrassed.
That's not true, we were embarrassed in the beginning.
People living here are all religious.
They wouldn't rent or sell houses to non-religious people here.
It's surprising we can even film now.
I'm surprised they don't stop us.
VARDA'S WIGSHOP
Hey sweetie.
How are you?
Can you measure the length of my hair?
The wig?
No, my own hair.
50 cm.
I'm sad not being able to show my own hair anymore.
But, it's my religious duty to cover my hair.
I use a wig to do that.
A part of my hair remains visible actually.
I find it difficult to cover it all.
But it's the rule.
This hair came from Turkey.
Turkish hair is of high quality.
It is strong, soft and really nice.
I really like working with Turkish hair.
There's also hair from Brazil, Argentina...
I don't like them.
They look like horse hair.
This is from the hair I brought here.
Yes.
I really can recognize.
I brought this hair.
Yes, it's true.
The truth is it's partially hers and partially mine.
I felt quite weird.
I cried, as if it was not me.
But I was encouraged by people around me, with compliments...
Including my family, everybody liked my wig.
Now, I cannot live without the wig.
I would feel naked and incomplete.
When my four-year-old son sees me without the wig
at night, sleepy, he shouts...
"Mom, put your wig on! I can see your hair!"
I really like wearing wigs because...
My hair was catastrophic.
You don't need to put too much hair out, this is enough.
Only the first row, like this...
I lift up and put a hair clip.
Lithuanians usually wear wigs.
Hasidic might wear wigs, but also hairband or headscarf.
Sephardic don't wear wigs, they wear hat or headscarf.
We Ashkenazi Jews mostly wear wigs.
For us, wig is like jewelry that brings joy.
You wake up, you put on your wig...
and you look like million dollar!
We need to have some layers and movement.
So that it won't be straight, do you understand?
I'll keep this part in the front longer than other parts.
But only a bit.
Yes, we do this so that people won't think you're Yemenite.
Making it a bit brighter will make the difference.
Wouldn't it look better?
No, I think it's ugly!
I don't like how this wig looks, at all.
Sorry for being annoying, Varda.
You're not, it's fine.
I don't want you to be unhappy after I prepare the wig.
I really don't like it.
We're still in the middle of the process, we can still change it.
I love wigs...
I tried millions of wigs myself.
Even though I look like a monkey with some of them.
But it also annoys me.
It's too hot to have it all day long.
But, I love wigs.
It's sometimes uncomfortable that...
people here are religious and I'm secular.
I get warnings sometimes.
But I'm careful with what I wear.
Yes, I have pink hair.
But after all I'm not a religious person.
LIPSKER WIGSHOP
I know, I exactly know what my sheitel and from where…
So this is from Europe or Ukraine.
This is a wig from Turkey, the hair is from Turkey.
There, hair is very...
healthy, you know.
It's very nice to walk with this.
We play with the wigs like the hair.
Up and down.
Like hair.
It’s a habit of me to do like this.
A woman stands a woman, although she goes with a wig.
Nothing changes.
I come home, I take it.
I put it on, maybe a bottle, here.
When I want to go out, I take out my headscarf.
I take my sheitel...
and do like this.
After 31 years with wig,
sometimes, after the shower
I look at myself and I say:
“now you really look young"
"now you really look Miri.”
Maybe this is the reason that I have to put the wig,
to put a distance between me and other people.
Because, I am a married woman.
Like married women, I have my own house,
my own husband.
I'm just for him.
So nobody can see my hair.
This is my oldest one,
she has beautiful hair,
oh no, beautiful wig.
This is a special occasion,
I use my long one.
This is my mother,
she's blonde.
This is my family.
Our hair has head and tail.
It’s like we have a roof...
and you have the hair roof, the top.
Turning it upside down makes it tangled.
So you have to maintain the same direction of the hair,
head and tail.
Head and tail shouldn't be mixed.
Otherwise, you just have to throw the hair out.
Even if one thread is upside down, the wig is useless.
TIME
Hello, hope all is well.
Welcome, Mr. Cengiz.
Check this hair.
This looks like it's from your grandma.
That's my grandma's hair, I cut it while she was asleep.
This hair is no good.
Come on, it's perfect for Israel.
If I were a woman, I would immediately buy this hair.
Look how long it is.
What will you do with this synthetic one?
Take that one as well.
Should I throw it?
That's 25 millions, how can you throw it away?
I think it's no good.
No I don't want it, take it back.
Whatever you want.
Neither you nor me are beginners, Ms. Oya.
You know hair better than me.
You're more experienced than me.
You're right!
You're in dialogue with the other side.
So, you are more experienced.
I'm also much older than you.
Let's not forget about age.
Personally, I want to quit this job.
You cannot find hair anymore.
I keep hearing this for 25 years.
You say there's no more hair.
I get old to hear the same sentence.
Let me explain you this...
12, 14, 16, 18...
I'm doing this for 20 years.
I'll show you 20 years old hair...
Nothing happens to them.
Plastic doesn't get air in.
We press hair against each other
to stop them from becoming frizzy.
I actually shouldn't be saying this, but I do.
We mostly know hair on our heads.
People are slightly shocked.
when they see hair in plastic.
The tightest you wrap it...
the less frizzy they become.
If you don't cut it from the root...
The down side isn't alive.
Would you feel it when you cut it?
Just like the nails.
You wouldn't cut your whole finger to cut your nail
You also don't cut your head to cut your hair.
Hair is like dead people.
Just like how people die.
Hair might look alive
but it dies when you cut it.
After all, it's cut from the brain cells.
Would you cut your wife's hair?
My wife has cut her hair, it's at home.
Why didn't you sell it?
I didn't.
Is it because you don't want other men to see it?
I didn't want her hair to end up on someone else's head, indeed.
It is still at home.
Hair loses its vitality when it's cut from the head, from the cells.
When it's detached from the head, it's not alive anymore.
When it's not cut, it's still alive on the head.
How can something not alive be intimate?
Well...
That is Bnei Brak cemetery.
The most religious people are buried there.
The price of one graveyard is 50 thousand dollars.
You have to loan from a bank to be buried there.
Otherwise, you cannot.
I believe in the hereafter.
I believe death is not the end.
I believe the spirit keeps living.
I don't know if this is about religion.
or is it to relieve myself...
I don't know.
I don't know if this is even true.
After all, I haven't been there.
I think I'll commit suicide
if I'm way over 70.
I'm honest.
There are different ways of doing it.
Cocktails and stuff.
I wouldn't throw myself out.
because I'm afraid of height.
Besides, then my underwear would be out there
I wouldn't want that.
Ms. Oya, it's not easy to come here in this cold
It's really not easy.
Then, I came from abroad for you
I travelled 12 hours for you Ms. Sima.
You travel within Turkey
Let's not make a competition
We won't be able to find this kind of hair in 10 years.
You said this 10 years ago too.
In 10 years, maybe the world itself won't be there.
What a world...
I told Yasar on the phone, "Do you want to come to Israel again?"
He said "I'm not Yasar, I'm Mustafa".
I asked "Which Mustafa?"
- "How much hair do you have?" - "4 kilos."
"I'll make it 6 kilos till you come."
- "Will you come to Izmir for selling 6 kilos?" - "No, I won't Ms. Oya."
"Then why do you call?"
Touch this hair.
If you want, check the other ones. The long ones.
Touch this one, just one thread.
Touch it and see.
It's about this hair's race.
Just like your hair being hard or other's being wavy.
I don't want to be rich.
I earn enough for a month with this hair and that's fine for me.
Earning my living honestly, that's what matters for me.
Do you know why did all those people bring down Mubarak in Egypt?
Because the middle class is shrinking.
Rich get richer, poor get poorer.
The middle class blends into the lower class.
Because there are not enough jobs.
- Smoking not allowed? - No, you can smoke.
- Wait a minute. - Yes, Ms. Oya..
There are 9 kilos of short hair inside 15 kilos.
I don't say anything Ms. Oya. I leave it to your conscience.
This has nothing to do with conscience, this is business.
There's both conscience and business here. All together.
VALUE
Me and my sister were looking at the hair
I told him the hair was not good.
He told me we have to buy all of it.
I said: "No"
"I'll only buy what I choose."
He refused.
He raised his voice.
His face changed completely.
I told him: "Talk like a man."
"You're facing a woman."
"Treat a woman like a woman."
"You have to show your respect for women."
"You value me less than yourself because I am a woman."
"And you see me as an infidel since I'm not Muslim."
"I cannot accept any of these."
"You can take all your hair..."
"And get out of this house..."
There is difference between men and women.
They are different.
Man is man, woman is woman.
The inside of the man is different than the inside of the woman.
He looks at different things and women look at different things.
But, I don’t understand, because
until they are married, they can go like this.
So, what is the difference?
Why now, they are afraid that someone will look at them?
But, I respect you.
No, you don’t understand.
If I go with my wife and everybody looks at her,
is it nice?
It's not ugly?
No.
You need to be, you need to do …
allowed and not allowed.
My wife is my wife, but I don’t shake hands
with women who are not my wife.
My mom is OK,
my mother, my father, my sister, it’s OK.
But other people who are not from the family…
What?
OK now, I do like this,
and I'm normal, she's normal.
But tomorrow...
she does like this and I do like this…
and then like this...
So, we keep it, we keep it like this.
We are entering our work place.
5-6 years ago...
In order to collect money, religious people
made it obligatory to get kosher certificate for hair.
They started not buying hair without kosher stamp.
They also don't buy hair from India.
Why would they not?
Because they cut hair during a religious ceremony there.
Let's say my wife wears wigs,
I want to know that it's not from
Buddha or something like that in India.
I can't use it, even if I want.
Of course it needs to be
from the Rabbinate.
There's nothing wrong with Turkish hair.
as long as it wasn't mixed with Indian hair or other hair
it's a kosher hair.
In their own newspapers and with posters on the streets...
They forbid buying hair from us.
They wrote in their newspapers too.
They couldn't announce it on TV...
because they don't watch TV.
They had no problem with Turkish hair.
They didn't want our hair.
Because we didn't want to pay for kosher.
So, we had only few customers left.
I don't pay money to make hair kosher.
I am afraid but...
If you ask me, it doesn't make sense.
It's absurd.
Of course, it's important for the orthodox religious people
I even lost some customers due to this.
But, it's not worth it.
Kosher hair or not kosher hair,
it doesn't matter for me
from where it comes.
The hair for the wig,
it serves me to serve god.
It helps me to be a Jewish modest women,
beautiful women to serve god
and to be with my husband...
together.
To be for him.
Islam and Judaism are more or less the same thing.
They do more or less the same things.
Actually in Turkey, wearing headscarf used to be forbidden for teachers.
They were also wearing wigs back then.
One has a headscarf, the other wears a wig.
It's kind of the same thing.
Actually it's even nicer with a wig.
If I were a woman, I would put on a wig.
It's more modest and beautiful.
In that way, I could also change my image.
Long hair is sexy.
Being sexy isn't a bad thing.
But then their concern isn't only religion.
Wig is an expensive object.
If one covers her hair for religious purposes...
She can also use a headscarf or a hat.
A sheitel is more kosher,
because you can cover all the hair
and you don’t see the hair when you cover.
If you put a hat,
you will see the hair.
I have a hat,
And I put it...
when we are going to Bet Knesset.
Synagogue.
The first time Jewish from Morocco and Iraq see the wigs,
they were surprised because
we never heard about this, what is this?
My wife, she doesn’t wear a wig.
I cover my hair but I put another hair
of another woman.
It's funny.
When I go to Bnei Brak and I see it,
it’s funny.
I know girls, before the wedding,
they are a little ugly.
Then after the wedding,
she puts the wig
and she looks million dollar,
like a model!
A wig in Israel costs 20 thousand shekel.
It's crazy!
This is the opposite of Jewish.
It's wrong.
Jewish women need to be
with their husband
at home.
Not fancy!
In Europe, people want dark and thick hair from Ukraine and Russia.
It can also be from Turkey or South America...
ZAHAVI WIGSHOP
We are dealing with different levels of human hair and synthetic hair.
We have beards, moustaches and special wigs
for TV and film industry.
This is a guy who basically
looked like Kim Kardashian.
This person, for example, looks like...
Binyamin Herzl,
who was the person who basically
founded Israel.
He looks like that.
This is the person himself, that's the founder.
You can get almost any figure you want,
even some of your politicians.
Do you have Erdogan somewhere?
We have Erdogan somewhere.
For synthetic wigs, the price can be 300-400 dollars
and up to 1000 or even 3000 dollars
for human hair wigs.
In fact, I feel bad doing this.
Actually selling even a single cell of a human is forbidden by our religion.
Even human urine is forbidden to sell.
But there's no other job.
How can I start a new job after 44 years old?
When you ask religious authorities...
They say selling hair is sinful.
But what else can one do after this age?
I have 500 (Ladino)
No, I need 50.
Oh 50, let me look.
Here is 1800.
If you give 2000 more, it will be OK.
50, 60, 70, 80...
85, 86, 87...
Make good use of it.
These one-dollar bills...
These one-dollar bills cause trouble.
Don't take them if you don't want to.
Give me other one-dollar bills.
I don't have it.
Don't take them then.
Take these, give me 5 Turkish liras...
I really don't have it.
What's wrong with them?
Then, we shouldn't use them either.
This is an F-type one-dollar bill...
You know, Fethullah Gulen here...
These bills are apparently their symbol.
Wait, these bills come from the US banks.
How can it be related to FETO?
Apparently, that's the case.
OK, if you say so.
I trust your word.
A lot of people got arrested because of this.
Really?
Yes.
Then, we shouldn't use them either, right?
What will happen if the dollar keeps rising?
What do you think?
This is more or less Erdogan.
I don’t know how good it is.
I hope there is not going to be a crisis between Israel and Turkey.
You can be leading a huge company
or a politician,
when your hair doesn’t look well,
you do not feel well.
It has such a connection to the soul,
to the essence of being a person.
A man when he loses his hair,
he feels less as a man.
GHOST
We never saw the women who cut their hair.
We can't.
There's hair coming from all around Turkey.
18, 20, 22, 23.
These are hair from 23 women.
Each tail here belongs to a single woman.
You shouldn't mix them.
You can tell when it's mixed.
I always wonder about the owners of these hair.
Who are they and why do they do it?
I guess, those women get some money in return...
I don't know.
They might get pots and pens in return.
Or, they don't know that hair is worth money.
They don't know its value.
Believe me, Ms. Coya...
Allow me to explain...
I swear they know better than you and me.
I’m glad if they do.
They know hair is valuable better than all of us!
I hope they do.
Maybe they didn't know 10-15 years ago.
10 years ago.
But now, there’s nobody left who doesn't know hair costs money.
Even 10 years old child knows you can sell and buy hair.
When I first touch the wig, I thought about who it once belonged to.
Someone must have cut this hair, to make me happy.
Who is that person who made it possible for me to enjoy this wig?
After a while...
you forget these thoughts.
It goes through so many processes until it reaches the final stage of me wearing it.
So I wouldn't care even if it belonged to a woman who's not very aesthetic.
If you ask me to think,
where my hair comes from,
maybe it comes from a queen.
Why a queen?
Because every Jew,
especially every Jewish woman,
she is a Bat Melech,
daughter of the king.
The king is...
our God.
So, I feel like...
I am her… his daughter.
So if I feel like the daughter of the king,
maybe my hair came from a queen.
Where would she be, the queen?