The Kassam Hair Style

Shimon Bouskila, also known as Shupan, grew up in Sderot and has been a hairstylist for twenty-three years. Five years ago, a Kassam rocket landed right in front of his barbershop, breaking the glass windows and causing damage to his shop. He was the first person to see the Kassam and as soon as he laid eyes on the rocket, the idea came to him –the “Kassam hair-due”.

Free of charge, anyone can get Shupan’s specialty. He said besides the time he did the hair-due for a local model, one person asked him to give him “the Kassam” for a costume in celebration of the Jewish holiday Purim (customary to dress up for this holiday).

Shupan doesn’t stop with the Kassams. He can also fashion your hair into a Menorah and a Shofar, the trumpet-like biblical instrument made form a ram’s horn. Shupan also did a promotional hair-due for the German based hair product company, Wella. The Sderot hairstylist uses Israeli supermodels to show off his specialties, with Miri Boadana pictured with the Menorah.


Shupan is also the personal barber of former Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz. Every three to four weeks, Shupan gives Mr. Peretz a hair cut at the Knesset member’s home. Amir Peretz’s daughter is also featured in a picture of nine girls with hair shaped like candles, standing in a formation forming a Menorah.


In 1995, Shupan won an international hairstylist tournament in Europe, the last year of such a competition. Shupan is the father of two teenage daughters and one son, who works in New York as a hairstylist and aspires to open a barbershop just like his father.

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