Jewfro

A Jewish-American youth sporting a "jewfro" at his high school.

A Jewfro refers to a curly hairstyle worn by people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Its name is inspired by the afro hairstyle, which it vaguely resembles.

The term has its roots in the 1960s and 1970s when many prominent figures were described as sporting the hairstyle. The Los Angeles Times called college football star Scott Marcus a flower child with “golden brown hair... in ringlets around his head in what he calls a Jewish afro style”.

The New York Times in a 1971 article on Harvard’s “hairy” basketball team, wrote that Captain Brian Newmark, “hasn’t had a haircut since last May and his friends have suggested his hairdo is a first cousin to the Afro...in the case of the Jewish Junior from Brooklyn, though, the bushy dark hair that is piled high on his head has been called an Isro." Novelist Judith Rossner was described in a Chicago Tribune profile as the “grown-up Wunderkind with an open, oval face framed by a Jewish Afro."

Heeb Magazine, an irreverent Jewish review, published a photo-spread on the "Jewfro" in its first issue and cited Aluś and Maciej Fijak as precursors of the style. Other examples of people who have had Jewfro style hair are Art Garfunkel, Evgeny Kissin, Brad Delson, Andy Samberg, Dustin Diamond, Larry Fine, Alan Dershowitz, Richard Simmons, Matt Stone, Simon Amstell, Adam Lamberg, Bob Dylan, Colin Baker, Tom Baker, Seth Rogen, Ben Lee, Jonah Hill, Alex Jacob, Gene Shalit, and more recently, Phil Spector.

See also

• Afro
• Mohawk
• Mullet
• Pompadour
• Caesar cut