woman on cover of Mishpacha

Mishpacha (English) surprised everyone and ran an image of Hillary Clinton opposite Donald Trump on the cover of the magazine this past week.

The image was tampered down a bit, I guess to make it less shocking to the readers, by using a negative filter, so it was not a normal picture of the two candidates.

While some people were surely surprised, Mishpacha is now taking some heat. Hamodia (Hebrew) has expressed criticism over this.

Funnily enough, they call it a precedent. As if this is the first time ever a Haredi publication published a picture of a woman. We all know this is not true. The "ban" on posting pictures of women is relatively new and recent.

Hamodia suggests that Mishpacha is not a true Haredi publication, as it says that a true Haredi newspaper does not and will not ever publish pictures of women, even those that have achieved leadership and ruling positions in their countries, as well as no pictures of women significant in Jewish life.  "This is our lifestyle, these are the fences surrounding them and they do not change for political reasons".  Hamodia continues to explain how we show respect to women and leaders, but not in pictures, and anyone who analyzes our lifestyle knows that that is the opposite of respect. We show respect in our own way and we expect that they will respect our lifestyle as well.
source: Kikar and Haredim10

I would note that YWN has published an article from Rabbi Yair Hoffman n the Five Towns Jewish Times touching on this issue and he summarizes the halachic issues of publishing images of women. To be brief, he concludes that there is no halachic problem but it is discouraged. It does seem to be more classic halacha in the hassidic community.

It would seem that the Haredi community would be strongly behind Trump just so that Hillary won't win and cause this to be a problem on a regular basis and possibly even force them, or some of them, to change their approach.

a question this raises is what happens next? Is the change in policy only for Hillary Clinton? Will they now publish [taznua] pictures of any woman? only of female world leaders? only if Hillary wins?

------------------------------------------------------

Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel

------------------------------------------------------