Michal Tenenbaum was filled with anticipation, wondering how long it would take for her hair to grow.
Tenenbaum, a 12th-grader at Beth Rivkah Ladies Collegeâa Chabad school in Melbourne, Australiaâhadnât cut her hair since November and still hadnât reached her goal of a 10-centimeter (almost 4-inch) braid. Thatâs how long hair needs to be, once it is cut, before it can be used to make a wig.
Tenenbaum had made a pledge to donate her tresses to Zichron Menachem, an Israeli nonprofit charity that provides wigs to children suffering the effects of cancer. Chemotherapy treatments rob children of their hair, often adding shame and social alienation to their medical struggles. Zichron Menachem is determined to make these children âfeel beautiful inside and outâ by providing them with wigs that allow them to slip back unnoticed into the current of society.
Tenenbaum wasnât alone in her quest, not by any stretch. When a few students in Beth Rivkah toyed with the idea late last year, they didnât realize that they would ignite a school-wide campaign that ended with the thud, thud, thud of freshly-shorn plaits piling up on tables in front of a school assembly. In addition to her two sisters, Tenenbaum was joined by 150 of her peers, who supported and encouraged each other throughout the long wait for their hair to grow.
When the deadline arrived on Sept. 28, six pairs of barber scissors glinted in the hands of the schoolteachers on the stage, and in front of them, six empty chairs faced the assembly. A representative of Zichron Menachem thanked the girls for their contributions, explaining just how much of a difference hair makes to those who have lost so much.
And then it was time. Wave after wave of girls came to the stage, and with trepidationâbut above all, prideâthey took their seats as their teachers snipped the locks they were preoccupied with for so long. Bursts of applause sounded each time the blades flashed and cut, as the girls gasped and giggled.
âGive Something of Myselfâ
Excuse the pun, but making sure cancer patients have wigs seems like a fringe cause. Given the medical, financial and social burdens that the disease saddles them with, shouldnât attention be focused elsewhere?
No at all, was the impassioned answer of Michal Franck in her address at the assembly. Franck, a student at Beth Rivkah, described her experience with alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes a personâs hair to fall out. When that started happening in fourth grade, she first began to comprehend how she took hair for grantedâhow much it affected her confidence and sense of femininity.
Add that to the trauma of cancer, said Franck, and the loss of hair can be shattering. To regain it in the form of a wig of hair donated by fellow Jews across the globe is to regain so much more than a former look. Franck commended her schoolmates, saying: âThe fact that people here are willing to not take their hair for granted, to sacrifice something which can be so central to their personality, is beyond admirable.â
Tenenbaum downplayed Franckâs admiration of her contribution. âAt first, it was difficult to get used to not having my old hair,â she said a few days after the big cut at school. âBut then I realized that I had this opportunity to give something of myself, literally, that costs me nothing and that will grow back, but which will [most importantly] help kids in Israel.â
When the scissors finally fell silent, the tally for the hair to be donated stood at a staggering 148 feet. Most of that will go directly to making the wigs, and hair that fell short of the 10-centimeter target will be sold by Zichron Menachem to raise funds.
However, the teachers havenât packed away their ad hoc barber shop just yet: Some girls have already started growing their hair out again.
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