Tzadik Plastic Surgeon to Shadchanim: Free Nose Job for Your Clients Who Need But Can’t Afford It
Latest update: April 1st, 2012
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Before and After
Photo Credit: Bell Harbour Plastic Surgery
Yanover: I’ve always admired your profession for repairing cleft palates, or reconstructing nasal passages, or helping burn victims, where the issues at hand are not just aesthetic, but come down to the quality and even the possibility of life itself.
Salzhauer: I’ve heard that my whole career. You should know that before they allow you to do cosmetic surgery, you have to operate on sick people, you have to go through general surgery. Then you have to operate on reconstructive cases, like cleft palates, etc. And then, after all that, you reach a level where you can operate on people that don’t necessarily need you for medical reasons, but you can greatly benefit their lives.
To operate on a healthy person, to put a scar on somebody who otherwise wouldn’t need it, but you can actually make them look better and feel better, that’s another level completely.
I’ve been through burn victims, I’ve been through cleft palates and so forth.
WHY DO CROOKED TEETH GET ALL THE BREAKS?
Before and After
On the other hand, nobody looks askew at orthodontia, at a parent who takes an 11-year-old girl or boy to the orthodontist because they have crooked teeth. And they put this metal braces in their mouth, and the child is in pain, and it takes months and years, and they look deformed until they finally get them off and they have beautiful, straight teeth. And that, too, costs thousands of dollars.
Still, people don’t have a problem talking about it, and nobody says, Oh, she’s so vain, how could she do that to her kid, doesn’t she know that beauty is on the inside.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world that doesn’t have access to orthodontists, they all survive, they all eat, they all get married, they all do fine. It’s not like you need straight teeth to live. So there’s some hypocrisy there – if you have a crooked nose, you should live with that, but if you have crooked teeth, sure, go get the kid braces.
Yanover: Do you in your practice tell some patients they should not get a nose job, they’re just fine the way they are?
Salzhauer: Often. I would say, between 15 and 20 percent of all the people that come into my office don’t even get a quote for surgery. I just say, Look, what you have isn’t serious enough to require surgery – in other words, it’s some minor imperfection that only they see.
They may also not be psychologically good candidates for surgery for various reasons.
Some people think that surgery is going to suddenly cure all their life’s problems. But that’s just not true. So if I pick up on those cues in talking to patients, and I say, You’re just not a good candidate for cosmetic surgery.
Then there are patients who can’t have the surgery for medical reasons. I only operate on, essentially, young, healthy people. I don’t do a lot of facelifts. I don’t treat a lot of patients over the age of 50. The majority of my patients are between ages 15 and 50.
THE TALE OF THE HASIDIC REBBE AND THE PLASTIC SURGEON
Before and After
When I was a general surgery resident, going through trauma training and cardiac surgery training and all that, and I’m frum, so I had a crisis of conscience – shouldn’t I do trauma surgery, which seemed much more lofty.
A chasidishe rebbe came to town, I think it was the Riminover Rebbe (Rabbi Chaim Wassertheil). I saw a sign – Tzadik ba la’ir (a righteous man has arrived in our city). So I went for yechidus (private audience), to ask about my dilemma. I had a few references from people who said he was “ish kadosh,” a holy guy.
So I went in, I was about 27 at the time, and I told him, I’m on this path, I was accepted in plastic surgery—which is a very competitive position to get because it’s considered a highly specialized field and it’s so lucrative. I told him, I have a lot of other choices, I can go into general surgery, I could go into business and medicine, and I had couched the question to him in a way that I was sure he was going to say, You should go into helping sick people. I was sure that’s what he was going to say, how could he say anything else?
So he looks down for a few minutes… By the way, this is a guy who, I’m sure, has not watched TV his whole life, I doubt he’s seen a movie, or knows who Madonna is, or anything like that. And he looks at me and in his very heavy accent he says, You must, you must continue – meaning plastic surgery.
tell a friendAbout the Author: JewishPress.com Senior Internet Editor Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published two fun books: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How Would God REALLY Vote.
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One Response to “Tzadik Plastic Surgeon to Shadchanim: Free Nose Job for Your Clients Who Need But Can’t Afford It”
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It's "cleft palate" not "pallet".
Thanks for correcting. It looks much better now.
Nice of this surgeon to offer, but all these people’s noses were perfectly fine! They were all nice looking people. What kind of world do we live in where people think that noses like that are not-good looking???
Michael, Kov Hakavod for your big HEART in making people's lives happier and for giving back to the community. B"H" you and your family be blessed only with good things.
"Deep-seated," not "deep seeded."
looks like the article had a few blemishes that needed surgical correction.
Shoshanna Goldstein Sanders — they fixed it, but not completely. "Deep-seated" takes a hyphen…. (Editors unite!)
Let me get this straight. Not only are the guys in question dweeby, unemployed with nothing of worldly value to offer a wife, and unable to date without their MOMMIES doing basically everything for them, but when (aggressively pre-screened) women line up for them them out of a sincere and innocent belief that they stand to gain a place in heaven-something that would NEVER happen in any other culture- what do we get but complaints that the women aren't pretty enough!
What a bunch of ungrateful pigs!
I am so sick of the constant emphasis the frum community places on men and their taavos for female beauty! What about women's taavos? Your typical person in America knows surprisingly.
little about the female orgasm. Where is the article about that? Why isn't this plastic surgeon offering anything for male enhancement? Apparently taava only goes one way.
By the way, my Chinese mother in law absolutely does not believe that the kollel system exists. She cannot accept that a mother would let her daughter marry an unemployed man.
Esther, luckily you seen to have snagged a good one!
totally agree with that!
On the one hand, it seems that Mr. Salzhauer is offering a kindness with his free service (although this does give him free advertising), but it is outrageous for Jewish women to be objectified like cattle and for beauty to be reduced to such a limited standard. The woman in the photo has nothing wrong with her nose! It is an inoffenive aqualine nose. What about Jewish men who are bald, short, or fat, and that is the majority. You are not publishing articles on hair recovery or the need for frum men to have more physically active life styles. Also, what message does this send to girls? The fact is, men who put such a premium on beauty and weight are unworthy. I am not opposed to cosmetic surgery when it makes individuals happy, but it should not be the result of societal pressure and by publishing this article, that is what the Jewish Press is endorsing. You are harming our Jewish community of both women and girls.
Having been fortunate to be assigned a nice nose, I grew up with many girls who didn't! No one was religious so it had nothing to do with anything other than how unhappy they were with what they saw in the mirror everyday. This was not plain old vanity….This was plain old god-awful ugly! And something that could be almost easily be taken care of. I have known lots of Long Island Jewish girls who got nose jobs after they were 16-17 years old. The self-confidence it gave them was amazing! There is nothing wrong with doing something that makes you feel good about yourself as a human being. Comparing penis size to a girls looks is ridiculous! Maybe if the guys had to wear them on the outside, that may be different! Frum guys need to be more concerned about their either way to skinny bodies or their way too fat bodies at such young ages! Girls wanting nose jobs is about girls wanting nose jobs. If you can change your figure so you fell better about yourself (dieting, which ain't easy! Lot harder than a nose job) then do it! If you are a girl and don't care then by all means, don't do it! And NEVER do it for anyone other than yourself!