Haredi newspaper edits out female world leaders

[misslady]

www.mediaite.com/online/ultra-orthodox- ... bdo-march/

Heaven forbid Angela Merkel cause one to think inappropriate thoughts.

[Cleopatra7]

I've heard about this happening before. When Osama bin Laden's death happened, haredi newspapers edited out Hillary Clinton from the war room photos with the male members of the Obama administration.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-jas ... 59601.html

(link not broken because it's HuffPo)

A February 2007 article by Jacob Berkman of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency begins with the odd fact that "Hillary Clinton could be America's next president, but her picture will never appear on the pages of the country's only Jewish daily newspaper."

Hamodia, as a matter of editorial board policy, refuses to publish photographs of women since it considers the female body to be immodest. In that same article, Menachem Lubinsky, the marketing consultant for the newspaper, explained that this modesty policy is in the strictest interpretation of Jewish law. The newspaper's publisher -- a woman -- refused to speak with Berkman for modesty reasons.

Hamodia, which has been publishing papers since 1910, has never published a photo of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir or Queen Elizabeth or Madeleine Albright or Hillary Clinton.

Haredi newspapers also refuse to run photographs of ordinary women, including little girls and infants, because they are considered "immodest." :wtf:

[anjulibai]

I think if they are going to have a policy of not showing women then they should just not publish pictures.

Photoshopping women out is erasing their existence and completely unethical, IMO.

[sparkles]

The Ministry of Truth hard at work.

[docmom]

What power we women have. A mere picture of us causes grown men to crumble! It is time to put our evil plan into action and take over the world.

[Rachel333]

Wow, all the women are completely covered up and you can barely even see their faces! The Haredi seem to think their men are incredibly week. :lol:

[SPHASH]

Sounds so Maxwellian.

[SPHASH]

What power we women have. A mere picture of us causes grown men to crumble! It is time to put our evil plan into action and take over the world.

Let's do it!

[anjulibai]

You know, there's research that the more a culture requires women to cover up, the more easily men in that culture become aroused when exposed to women.

Extreme modesty just warps perceptions and responses.

[misslady]

You know, there's research that the more a culture requires women to cover up, the more easily men in that culture become aroused when exposed to women.

Extreme modesty just warps perceptions and responses.

I have often thought about this with regards to the Fundamentalists we talk about here. All this "pants draw the eye to the crotch" and "skirts let you focus on the heart" and "men are visual" stuff - if nobody ever said that to you, is that what you'd really think? Would that really be your experience of the world? You've got to be carefully taught. :/

[Arete]

The most truly soul sickening photoshop job I ever saw a Haredi publication pull was when one of the general circulation magazines blurred out all the captured Jewish women's faces from a photo of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. They left in all the faces of the male Jewish prisoners, they left in the faces of the Nazi soldiers and officers. But those women and girls who would be dead within a few hours to days? Their faces had to be erased lest some pious Haredi man not be able to handle looking at an unrelated woman.

Protecting male virtue by erasing the faces of women. That is how religious fanatics of all strips protect "modesty".

[sparkles]

So who's doing the photoshopping, I wonder? Do they hire it out to women or do they pick a man Lottery style to take one for the team?

Seriously, not that I'm such a fan of religion but where, when and how did so many of them go off the rails?

[Idolatry]

Wow I thought this was a joke. Women in giant coats are immodest? How am I supposed to do anything then if my presence in a giant coat is immodest? My existence is immodest?

[samurai_sarah]

The curse of Photoshop strikes again...

[August]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/ultra-orthodox-jewish-newspaper-edits-female-world-leaders-out-of-charlie-hebdo-march/

Heaven forbid Angela Merkel cause one to think inappropriate thoughts.

Or that her vagina doesn't make her unable to govern a massive, important country.

[2xx1xy1JD]

So who's doing the photoshopping, I wonder? Do they hire it out to women or do they pick a man Lottery style to take one for the team?

Seriously, not that I'm such a fan of religion but where, when and how did so many of them go off the rails?

Ironically, the odds are quite high that this was done by one of their female staff. From what I've read, much of the office and production staff is female.

Once upon a time, there were some voices of reason within Haredi Judaism. Rabbi Moses Feinstein, a renowed American rabbi, had some common-sense rulings about using public transit without worrying about accidentally brushing against someone of the opposite sex, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who headed the Chabad movement, specifically insisted that pictures of women be included in publications. Both of those men are now deceased.

Today, I see a creeping race to the extremes, without enough push-back from within the community. You'd think that Hamodia would have stopped photoshopping after all the negative attention from the infamous photo of the Obama team watching the Bin Laden raid that eliminated Hilary Clinton. Even in my own community, though, I see one local publication, The Community Link, that only publishes pictures of males (http://www.thecommunitylink.ca/). They basically run a bunch of ads aimed at the Orthodox Jewish community, and I suppose that in order to avoid problems with any possible segment of that community, they just won't use any picture of a female, at all. So, a fringe stringency suddenly shapes the policy. I know several of the advertisers personally. Many are women with small businesses who need to advertise here to reach their customers. So...independent business women who would think that this rule is nuts end up supporting a publication that follows it.

[browncoatslytherin]

i saw this article via betty bowers and was wondering if someone would post it here lol. i read the whole thing and found it just completely ridiculous. there are so many unethical implications here, all in the name of religion. if your religion endorses unethical behaviour, i don't think you have a good religion. jmo, though.

[salex]

This kind of thing-- deleting the women for immodesty despite them being covered head to toe--is an excuse. Using immodesty as the reason why women can't be seen in public, drive cars, be in pictures, suggests that it isn't that these men are worried about a tingle in the nether region as much as they just don't want women to be anything other than house pets or slaves.

It also shows that fundies of different religions have more in common with one another than they do with more liberal branches in their same religion.

I once told someone (who turned out to be a fundie) that fundamentalism would be what finally destroys the world. I see nothing to suggest I was wrong.

[nausicaa]

I've heard about this happening before. When Osama bin Laden's death happened, haredi newspapers edited out Hillary Clinton from the war room photos with the male members of the Obama administration.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-jas ... 59601.html

(link not broken because it's HuffPo)

Haredi newspapers also refuse to run photographs of ordinary women, including little girls and infants, because they are considered "immodest." :wtf:

The part that stuck out to me about that HuffPo article is the line "since it considers the female body to be immodest." No specifications. as to which parts So it's not just the exposure of hair or legs or shoulders that is immodest, and there is no style of dress that can allow us to attain acceptability. No, our very physical existence is sinful. Disturbing.

[Letgo]

The part that stuck out to me about that HuffPo article is the line "since it considers the female body to be immodest." No specifications. as to which parts So it's not just the exposure of hair or legs or shoulders that is immodest, and there is no style of dress that can allow us to attain acceptability. No, our very physical existence is sinful. Disturbing.

Same here. Where do they find this in the Bible? They believe that G-d created woman, yet He did it immodestly? So immodestly that no part of a female is to be seen, even an infant? That just doesn't make sense. Plus that angers me to think they view an infant as immodest. It's sick.