Jerusalem police are looking for the suspect in a wig shop attack who destroyed a large supply of wigs for Jewish women.
The Israeli branch of American wig shop, Dini Wigs, was trashed in the attack, with wigs cut up, graffitied, and windows smashed. The estimated damage is over one million shekels (more than £210,000).
In the early hours last Friday morning, an Orthodox Jewish man can be seen on the shop’s CCTV cameras pulling out a hammer and smashing the glass door of the luxury wig shop.
The suspect, whose face is exposed in the footage, arrived with a headlamp, hammer, and spray paint.
At 3am on Friday, security cameras alerted the shop manager that there had been a break in.
In a video shared by Kassy Dillon on X, formerly Twitter, shop assistant Ayalla said: “Someone came in overnight. He just came in to destroy and damage the wigs. They don’t know exactly why. But he chopped up wigs and sprayed all over the wigs with graffiti spray.”
“It was devastating. We put so much effort in to make people look so beautiful and help them cover their hair, enjoy themselves, look pretty and keep their religion.”
Dini has stores in the US, Israel, and France, and caters for Orthodox women who cover their hair, as well as people living with medical hair loss.
Ready to wear wigs from Dini cost between £1,500 and £5,000, but Ayalla said, “It is not only money, it is a destruction of handwork.” The wigs are handmade from real human hair.
Ayalla added, “There is a group of people that don’t want people to wear natural wigs. They want people to cover the hair with fabric and not with hair.”
Local press outlets have suggested that the suspect was acting on behalf of the “chastity guards”, a vigilante gang that operates in Charedi communities to enforce modesty through violence and intimidation.
Israeli police are looking for the suspect and Dini have changed their security system after the attack.
