Opinion

OZY Takes You Ahead of the Curve in Good News

OZY was first to report on these uplifting stories of people making their corner of the world a little bit better.

Happy holidays! At OZY, we take it as our mission to bring you stories that inspire as well as inform — and in doing so, we try to be the first to deliver those stories. And this year, perhaps more than others in the recent past, it hasn’t always been easy to focus on the stuff that’s uplifting when much of the world is facing major challenges (including the world itself as climate change grows ever more alarming). So today, we’ve chosen to remind you that there are countless positive things happening around the globe — by publishing 10 of our favorite pieces about people doing good, fighting for change and giving us all reason to hope for better tomorrows.

True Stories

Unapologetic: Cutting Away at Wig Tradition

Zelda Volkov’s wig business is booming thanks to her newer approach to the traditional Orthodox Jewish wig. 

If you ever find yourself in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, you may notice the approximately 40 synagogues and many yeshivas. You’ll see bearded men in black coats and modestly dressed women with short brown hair following the traditional appearance called for by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. What you may not notice, though, is what many women in this community, and in many other Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, are wearing: wigs.

Zelda Volkov, a Crown Heights native, used to wear a traditional sheitel. Today she strives to offer great-looking wigs to other Orthodox women.