Do orthodox-Jews hate women? asked a national news site. “… this is as wrong as it is unethical. I don’t care what religion is involved,” declared a Washington D.C. based political analyst on her blog about the doctored photo fiasco. “Is there any difference between Hasidic Jews and the Taliban regarding women?” asked a commenter on a news site reporting the Di Tzeitung’s altered photo. “For the fundamentalists, it seems like they prefer to cover their women than demand that their men control their primal urges,” reads another one. These, of course, are just a minuscule amount of the anti-Semitic comments the photograph mess has garnered. The orthodox Jews made it into the spotlight once again – and in a bad way, an awful and horrible way. Indeed, it has created a large-scale Chillul Hashem (desecration of the Almighty’s name).
Di Tzeitung has indeed issued a statement regarding the debacle, but it hasn’t done much to make the condition any better. The orthodox Jewish community – a minority population – is humiliated and disgraced for years to come. Our lobby will be obliged to do much damage control and will have to do more to prove the world that we do not discriminate against any race or gender. Our efforts to stop Toeiva (pro-choice) legislation may now become infertile, as our image will be tarnished forever.
Orthodox Jews are not sexist. In fact, it is the Torah that gave equal rights to women long before any feminist movement was born.
The Talmud (Kiddushin 35a) states: “The verse has equated woman to man for all penalties, rulings and deaths in the Torah.” The Avudirham (Weekday Prayer, Section 3) explains that women are exempt from time-oriented commandments to safeguard marital harmony. Furthermore, Rabbi Moses Feinstein, a leading Torah authority in the 20th century, writes in his responsa (Igros Moshe OH 4:49) that the Torah often heaps more praise on women than men. He maintains that the Torah made it easier for women than men concerning the time-oriented Mitzvos because of women’s nature and their humanizing personality. Thus, they have easier access to the world-to-come than men (see Tractate Brachos 17a).
Orthodox Jews are, however, against immorality.
When “feminist” movements began springing up in the twenties, people were appalled at how the previously accepted moral principles were discarded. They watched in horror how music changed from classical to jazz and heroes of the past were replaced with men like Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie. They shuddered when contemporary styles were introduced to the youngsters of the time, thereby symbolizing the change of generations. It was in those years that organized crime reigned and drinking became popular despite strict laws prohibiting alcohol. This drastic transformation eternally altered the public’s approach to immoral behaviors. It isn’t the Jews who changed – it is the world that changed.
Jews remain segregated and continue to guard the separation between genders. Consequently, less infidelity exists among orthodox Jews; it is for this reason that divorce rates amongst them are significantly lower than the general population and stable marriages is the norm. As a result, religious Jews refrain from frequenting secular newspapers and the general media; a picture of a woman might not cause one to sin, but it is, nevertheless, a protective guard against engaging in adultery-related activities. Refraining from looking at pictures that contain women — regardless of age and appearance — is literally the wedding-band for many religious; moreover, it is a protection that is permanent and everlasting.
However, doctored photos are a no-no. It is, truthfully, in our favor that a doctored photo should create such a commotion. Although religious Jews might feel the urge to do it for religious purposes – in a harmless way – others may use this very same tool to harm us. It was doctored photos that Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels used in order to portray Jews in a bad light. Terrorists constantly tamper with photos and videos to blame Israel for civilian deaths.
Additionally, according to Jewish law, forgery is prohibited and unethical.
It isn’t the first time that a Jewish newspaper published inaccurate, altered photos. It also wasn’t only Jewish newspapers that doctored the “iconic” photo; nevertheless, this time and this one created a ruckus. It didn’t seem to be newsworthy when Reuters altered pictures at the Lebanon War and Gaza Flotilla to portray Israel in a bad light, but it is exciting when a small Brooklyn based Yiddish newspaper doctored a photo without any bad intentions. This should serve as a reminder to religious Jews, especially those in the public eye, to remain vigilant at all times; we must constantly bear in mind that we ought to read the “fine print” to prevent a desecration of Hashem’s name.
Dave Hirsch is a political analyst and columnist. He can be reached at [email protected]
NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.
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34 Responses
Equating the Taliban and Orthodox Jews is absurd and Anti-Semitic. Cutting off heads is the same as altering a photograph?
We just have to remember, “Aisav soneh es Yaakov.”
Other than frei Jews, who objected. Hillary’s office said she wasn’t offended (she is familiar with the frum community, and has done well politically with us). The goyim (excluding secular Jews) seem more amused than anything else.
this article is very well written. i just have one comment to make though with the begginging of the article… the comments that the bloggers are not that off! the jewish ultra orthodox community does make it seem like they feel women are second class citizens. they are always so busy telling them how to be and how to dress instead of working on themselves. its not only the womens job to be tzniusdig. when a man comes up there after 12o its not going to be enough for him to say well the women around me were not dressed properly thats why i sinned. its still his job to gaurd his eyes and for some reason the community does not focus on this so much instead they are always busy trying to figure out another way to oppress theyre women…
dov 29. theyr not saying the jews are just like the taliban but if i remember clearly many jewish leaders have announced rullings that can qualify for taliban movements for example a few years ago they said women should not speak on cell phones in public… or there was another one saying women should wear black jackets in the summer or capes… it goes on and on…
Many comments on Yeshiva World equated little Yiddishe boys in Bnei Brak burning the Zionist (anti-Chareidi) flag, with Palestinians and Al Quaeda.
So we need to look at ourselves before we call others anti-Semites.
“Indeed, it has created a large-scale Chillul Hashem.” Says who? Just because the gentiles object to something we do, does not make it a Chillul Hashem.
Maybe it was a Kiddush Hashem how the world sees how we are so careful in guarding our eyes.
The only real and obvious Chillul Hashem is how a group of self-hating Jews (who have a known appetite for turning in Orthodox Jews) gave over this picture to the news media to incite them against us.
Jewish women in the Frumest communities are not required to wear burkas. Let’s be real, extremists in the Jewish community (with a few, very few, exceptions) do not murder innocent people. Anyone who tries to make the association with the Taliban is an Anti-Semite.
And, unfortunately, some of the worst Anti-Semites are Jews.
That is true,
(I can’t believe i’m agreeing with a liberal)
Its a well written article!
Some of you protest so much that it must really be getting to you. If you respect Torah and women then you have no problem with Torah dictated gender roles,and no problem with women driving, being seen in otherwise tznius photographs and with learning if the wish to..
…if you hold to the notions that women are intellectually weak, too sensitive emotionally to deal with difficult issues and are to be denied any legitimat role in the work place other than teaching as ameans to support their lkearning husband (Oy, do I remember having to listen to such stuff at my daughter’s option night at her Brooklyn based Bais Yaakov high school)…then indeed, I think you are Taliban light!
In a well known mussar shmuz, the great Mashgiach, Harav Yechezkel Levenshtein stated, “…frum…frum…krum.” His very clear point was that creating NEW chumras doesn’t necessarily lead to greater frumkeit, but rather to greater krumkeit. In the light of this unfortunate situation, more thought has to be given to how our actions will be perceived by the “VELT”. As this article very clearly points out, any initiative for the benefit of our community will now be viewed with greater scrutiny and perhaps denied. It would have been better if they would have decided to avoid publishing the entire picture.
“they are always so busy telling them how to be and how to dress instead of working on themselves.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong! They are always so busy telling them how to be and how to dress IN ADDITION TO working on themselves. Tznius and shmiras einayim go hand in hand and both are given high priority in chassidic circles.
Show me one rov, one chassidus, one person who stresses one but not the other. This is shallow anti-Semitism, no less than what we hear from our external enemies. Foul!
This writer is confusing bad PR with a Chillul Hashem. The two are not synonymous.
While the Di Zeittung did not mean to disparage women perhaps this whole incident should give us pause for reflection.
Why will the Hamodia, Binah, Yated etc not publish a picture of a women? The Chofetz Chaim’s wife has been cropped out of pictures in some of these publications. Where in Halacha are “tznisdik” pictures of women banned from being printed?
The question to ask is who sets our tznius agenda and are we being driven to the far fringe?
tracht_gut you failed to mention the Taliban-like “tznius patrols” in Meah Shearim who berate and physically assault women for crimes such as dressing immodestly or sitting in the wrong place on a bus. Unfortunately our frum society, like any other, is plagued with a few bad apples who can make us look bad as a whole.
DELETED.
crazykanoiy (#14) – Your point is well taken – I note that there are photos of the wives of gedolim in some Mesorah Publications books.
CSR:: YOU ARE TOTALLY ON TARGET!!!!
#14,
Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that if a woman is dressed 100% b’Tzniyus, that there would be no problem with printing her picture.
However, besides for the basic standards of Tzniyus mandated by Halacha in all communities, some communities follow stricter standards. It is perfectly reasonable to refrain from printing any picture that doesn’t meet the strictest standard – after all, the magazine is read in communities throughout the world. However, why risk offending anyone by printing some pictures of women and not others?
What’s wrong with the taliban’s view on tznius? But this is beyond taliban.
crazykanoiy:
It’s not who sets *our* tznius agenda, but rather who sets *their* tznius agenda.
The newspapers are all business who principally cater to a certain clientele and also claim to abide by guidelines set forth by their respective rabbinical advisors.
Nobody is telling *you* what *the* standard is; but when you subscribe to a publication then your reading it is subject to their standards in that publication.
YonasonW, a liberal who is always trying to sell his idealogy, you definitely are. However, being that you are not the biggest talmid chochom around, then you are not aware that our gedolim have forbidden women to allow themselves to be photographed or videotaped if it will be posted on the Internet or other public media. One of those people who forbid such things is my own rabbi.
So, before you shoot off YOUR big mouth again, why don’t you do your homework. I thank you.
@11- Di tzeitung is a Satmar newspaper so he follows the rules of Satmar ruv, too bad the Satmas ruv was not a Mashgiach.
Almost everyone here is mixing up 2 separate things. One issue is the debate about should we put pictures of females in general publications. There is another, totally unrelated issue, about doctoring photos from the government that are released for publication, with the express condition not to change anything.
Because one or two publications did an avla of doctoring pix, suddenly people are calling into question long standing policies held virtually across the spectrum of chareidi journalism.
The goyim don’t, and never will, have the sensitivity to understand the reason for such a policy. But a Torah true person hopefully should. It is not against women, nor against their pictures. Almost all of these people have pictures of their wives, mothers and daughters. They love and respect them. But they do not feel that those pix belong in the public domain. The Chofetz Chaim’s wife is not cropped out of family pictures, only out of published ones.
If there are people who wish to work on themselves in matters of shmiras einayim, and there is anough of a market share to make such a business decision worthwhile, then publications will sprout out to meet those market demands. No one is forcing anyone to buy them, or read them.
If someones Oneg Shabbos is not complete unless he sees a picture of Rebbetzin Jungries, well then maybe he should buy the Jewish Press and not look at Yated or Modia. Why does it bother the JP subscriber types, if those Bnei Aliya, who would like to live on a slightly higher plane, have a publication that does not offend their sensitivities?
They’re all into “live and let live.” But does that only apply to people to your left, not those to your right?
Photos have been doctored on many occasions in frum Torah publications (books eg. Biographies), so why is this different. The entire sugya of not showing photos of females is some chumra and not halacha lemaesse.
WHY? we are afraid of the truth and teaching our kehilla what emes is all about. (eg. So what if a particular rebetzin hair is not covered? or if the Gadol/Rosh Yeshiva was reading a secular book or hatting a white golf cap. or if a RZ Rav was sitting together at the dais with others..)
What must be realized is that the paper was not fooling its readership, it was catering to them! Their readers want them to serve them this kind of thing. They chose this paper because of its standards.
wow # 10 yonassan! well said!!!!!!!!!
dear your sister. u sound like u are a little bit narrow minded and also the type of women that doesnt believe in using the internet so here is a question for you! what exactly are you doing on this site?!
I am quite confident that “baruchgershom” (#16) isn’t Jewish and is an anti-semitic troll, considering the blatant lies he writes.
#28 thats the oldest tactic in the book to attack instead of answering.
And BTW she never said anything about posting on the internet, she said not to put a picture of herself on the internet.
“They watched in horror how music changed from classical to jazz and heroes of the past were replaced with men like Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie.”
Actually, men like that produced wonderful music. As did George Gershwin, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, Jews all.
“They shuddered when contemporary styles were introduced to the youngsters of the time, thereby symbolizing the change of generations. It was in those years that organized crime reigned and drinking became popular despite strict laws prohibiting alcohol. This drastic transformation eternally altered the public’s approach to immoral behaviors. It isn’t the Jews who changed – it is the world that changed.”
Actually, a lot of Jews participated in bootlegging and worse. There was an infamous shomer Shabat hit man named Red Levine. And who wants to remember Jewish gangsters like Buggsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz, and Lepke Buchalter.
“Refraining from looking at pictures that contain women — regardless of age and appearance — is literally the wedding-band for many religious; moreover, it is a protection that is permanent and everlasting.”
It is not mentioned in any of the traditional halachic sources I’ve ever seen, which refer only to refraining from looking at LIVE women.
And characterizing a photographic portrayal of a 62 year old modestly dressed professional woman as forbidden only brings mockery to Torah, fuzzing the line between photographs like the one in question and ones that really ARE a halachic problem such as the stuff that appears on the covers of fashion and celebrity magazines on a regular basis, not to mention the front page of the *New York Post*. But it is the *New York Times*, which rarely has any interesting photographs of anything, that gets bashed by the frum community.
“It didn’t seem to be newsworthy when Reuters altered pictures at the Lebanon War and Gaza Flotilla to portray Israel in a bad light”
It WAS newsworthy, and it causes the reputation of the news organization to diminish when it prints falsehood. *The New York Times* is still in my doghouse for publishing Judith Miller’s propaganda in the leadup to the Iraq War.
“They are always so busy telling them how to be and how to dress IN ADDITION TO working on themselves. Tznius and shmiras einayim go hand in hand and both are given high priority in chassidic circles.”
Not in this case! They were so concerned with tzniut that they went over an issur d’oraita!
“It is perfectly reasonable to refrain from printing any picture that doesn’t meet the strictest standard – after all, the magazine is read in communities throughout the world. However, why risk offending anyone by printing some pictures of women and not others?”
It may be reasonable, but it isn’t Judaism. We do NOT attempt to hold to all opinions. If we did that, we would never produce children because you will never have a mikveh that satisfies all opinions. But we would starve to death first because you will never have kashrut that satisfies all opinions.
“our gedolim have forbidden women to allow themselves to be photographed or videotaped if it will be posted on the Internet or other public media”
Maybe YOUR gedolim have, but MY gedolim have done no such thing.
The Yiddish newspapers in question could have simply declined to publish the photograph at all. Instead, they violated Torah prohibitions in order to follow a minhag. That isn’t Orthodox. Doctoring photographs is what I would have expected from Pravda, not a Jewish publication.
Whoever wrote this should really learn what chilul Hashem means. The interpretation and facts concerning this matter are not presented accurately here.
It’s Christians that have the “adultery of the heart (ie. Lust)” as a sin, not the Jews. “adultery-related activities?!?” How are pictures of women even remotely related to adultery?!?
#13 is right that this is bad PR, but misses how this is in fact a Chilul HaShem. Chilul HaShem can be determined by Jews, but if a non-Jew looks at a Jew and says that what the Jew’s doing makes God look bad that’s a chilul HaShem, too. Sure, Dir Zeitung needn’t change their policy to accommodate new liberal values, but maybe they ought to keep a stricter watch over where their publications reach.
No. 31: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is 63, not 62. Get your facts straight, and don’t cut her any slack.