In a world where we all know the power of Photoshop, a New York Hasidic newspaper has done an incredibly stupid and ignorant thing.Remember the now famous photo of Obama and his staff in the situation room beneath the White house watching the raid on Bin Laden?
Hillary Clinton and another woman are clearly seen in the photo and have now become part of history.
But due to some bizarre Hasidic law, a Jewish newspaper in New York has published the photo but with all the females airbrushed out of the shot.
The Brooklyn-based newspaper Der Tzeitung issued the following statement,
“In accord with our religious beliefs, we do not publish photos of women, which in no way relegates them to a lower status … Because of laws of modesty, we are not allowed to publish pictures of women, and we regret if this gives an impression of disparaging to women, which is certainly never our intention. We apologize if this was seen as offensive.”
Holy crap. Can you believe this stuff still goes on?
They say it was not intended to lower females to a lower status but that is EXACTLY what it does. Thank goodness there have never been any famous or powerful Jewish women because we would never see them in print. Oh wait, there have been.
You would almost expect a Muslim newspaper to do this because we know how they feel about and treat women. But for a Brooklyn New York paper to do this really sets woman’s rights, and humanity, back about 2,000 years.
Why not Photoshop out Barak Obama because he is black? Or remove anybody that is not a Christian?
You really have to wonder how we can still have a constructive dialog when this type of thing is still happening. Think about how their children will deal with the world when they become old enough to interact with society.
My two cents:
If a woman in a powerful position is going to try and broker peace for our country and yours (and that includes Israel and Palestine), and try to make this a better place for you and your children to live, the least you can do is recognize her in a photo and not remove her.
If you remember, there was a time when one particular individual tried to erase any sign of the Jews from our planet and we came in to help fight for you. We need to stop trying to erase people from our thoughts and minds and recognize them for both the good and bad that they bring to the world.
This is the very type of action that keeps intolerance alive.
Thank goodness this tradition has not gone country wide or my relatives would have some very strange looking wedding photos in our family album.
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