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
Board-certified Miami plastic surgeon and Nose Job Specialist Michael Salzhauer surprised me, I had cynically expected something else entirely.
I’ve written about the Groggers, the band he hired to shoot a very funny commercial promoting his business, urging the “Jewcans” among us to alter their schnozes to get the shikse-looking girl. It was so beyond the pale, you had to laugh.
So I thought, Smart businessman, good finger on the pulse of his potential clients, how cool is that.
Then I wrote the article about his trouble with his colleagues at the ASPS on account of that video commercial, and I figured, I suppose you get hurt when you dare push the envelope, so maybe he’s a smart businessman, but maybe too smart for his own good. But it turned out the entire rebuke came from just one other plastic surgeon who took a ride on Salzhauer’s fame using a chronic absence of a sense of humor as a vehicle to get his own 15 minutes of fame. So far, there’s been no ASPS action against Salzhauer.
Then I was reading – because I’m Jewish and I’m addicted to the Jewish Press – the articles and counter articles and many hundreds of comments on the issue of giving your daughter an extra oomph in her search for a good husband, and, if needed, paying for her nose job.
So I started calling Dr. Michael Salzhauer’s office, asking for an interview, and whenever I called he’d be hard at work, turning Jewish noses into Nordic masterpieces (I could have written “Aryan masterpieces,” but then the hate mail would start pouring). We finally managed to talk, and he blew my mind. He forced me—an instinctive objector to vain mutilation for the sake of some notion of exterior beauty—to reconsider my views on this issue.
And he’s not cynical, that was another huge surprise. I walked away convinced he means every word he says.
MEET NOSE JOB SPECIALIST DR. MICHAEL SALZHAUER
Nose Job Specialist Michael Salzhauer on NBC's Today Show
Salzhauer: First of all, I love the Jewish Press, I remember reading it all the time when I was growing up in New York. I’m very pleased with the articles that you guys have written on the Groggers, and before we go into the controversy about the video, I want to tell you an interesting story.
I read Yitta Halberstam’s article (in which she recommended that young women looking for a husband should consider doing a nose job). Gil Student—he and I went to high school together—jokingly posted it on my Facebook page, saying he wonders if Dr. Salzhauer would pay to have this article published.
I read the article, and I saw that there were like 500 comments. I didn’t read through all the comments, of course. I read the article, and thought to myself, She’s right on! This is what I see in my daily practice. I see girls that come in with low self esteem, they have surgery, they blossom, and they go on and I see them months, years later, when they’re married and they thank me and it’s gratifying. It’s one of the most gratifying things about my job as a cosmetic surgeon.
So I put in a comment that she’s 100 percent correct.
I’ve been speaking to shadchanim (matchmakers) literally for years, offering my services for free. I say, look, if you have clients that you think would benefit from cosmetic surgery, I won’t charge them. If you refer them to me and you tell me that they’re dating and they’re trying and they don’t have the money for the surgery, please send them to me, I’ll be happy to do it and let’s see if we can’t change people’s lives.
(The average nose job costs between five and ten thousand dollars in Miami. In New York and Los Angeles these operations would cost between eight and twenty thousand – YY)
So I’ve been speaking to shadchanim and they all email me back and say, I think it’s a good idea, we’ll work on it, but no one ever took me up on the offer. I guess because it’s a very difficult conversation for a shadchan to broach with a young woman.
Imagine going to your shadchan and they tell you, I think you need a nose job, or liposuction. A lot of times it’s even congenital things, when one breast is bigger than the other, for instance. It’s a very common issue, but I know that in the frum community it’s more than just stigmatized, as it is in the general population, where, even though it’s very common, people still speak about plastic surgery in hushed whispers. For frum people it’s a taboo.
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!