Stylist stereotypes

When Zohan tells his parents he wants to give up counterterrorism for hairstyling, his father asks, "What, are you a faigele?"

By LARRY DERFNER
When Zohan tells his parents he wants to give up counterterrorism for hairstyling, his father asks, "What, are you a faigele?" Zohan is no faigele, though, and neither is leading Israeli stylist Michel Mercier. But what about the country's stylists in general? Which stereotype fits them better - lady-killer or faigele? The word on the street: faigele. "I'd say 60 percent of them aren't interested in women," says Mercier. "OK, let's say 50 percent of them aren't interested in women." "Seventy percent of them are homos," says Motti Chemo, a married student at Michel Mercier College. "Eighty percent are homos," says a nudnik sitting in Chen Noach's salon in Tel Aviv's Hatikva Quarter. Noach glares at him. "All except Chen," the nudnik quickly adds. "Gay hairstylists behave naturally in a way that has an effect on a woman like a flirtation. The way they move their hands, their gentle talk, their soft manner - they play the woman," says Mercier College teacher Shifra Garbash, stressing that as far as she knows, all her current students are straight. It's said, though, that even heterosexual Israeli hairstylists pretend to be gay because it's good for business, so who really knows?