Brooklyn, NY – 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.
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The English-language version of Hamodia, which touts itself as “The Newspaper of Torah Jewry,” does not publish photographs of women because its editorial board believes that pictures of the female form are immodest and displaying them, even in the context of news coverage, would be out of line with Jewish law.
Cringe or laugh, but the English edition of Hamodia — its forebear started out in Eastern Europe as a religious Yiddish paper in 1910 and was resurrected as a Hebrew publication in Israel in 1950 — is on the rise: In its decade of existence, the English edition has seen its circulation grow to 45,000 households.
“In the strictest interpretation of halachah, it is a question of modesty,” said Menachem Lubinsky, the marketing consultant for Hamodia, when asked about the policy of not running photographs of women.
Lubinsky, who spoke to JTA after the paper’s publisher, Ruth Lichtenstein, declined through a publicist, citing modesty reasons, said Clinton wouldn’t be the first female leader to be affected by the policy.
“We never featured a picture of Golda Meir,” he insisted.
Last week, when the paper covered the presidential primaries and ran a photo of U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), it avoided showing a photo of the former first lady, featuring instead a photo of Bill Clinton stumping for his wife behind a podium with a “Hillary for President” sign.
The policy is not an issue of belittling women, Lubinsky insisted, noting that the paper has female editorial staffers, its stories quote women and Lichtenstein writes unsigned editorials. [JTA]
Anon. 9:48AM. You seem to be (highly) upset and (very) angry, and showing it! But [if they are so FRUM] they shouldn’t publish a newspaper, (which happens to be of a high caliber.)
I agree with anonymous 5:12–this exclusion of women is somewhat disturbing. If they really wanted to avoid the whole pictures issue, they could just include sketches (from the neck up) of all their news subjects, as The Wall Street Journal does. Of course even a head sketch of a woman may be too much for them. I’m not surprised that they won’t give women bylines–they probably realize that many of their readers won’t accept a woman’s writing as easily as they would a man’s.
They’re a bunch of meshugeneh fanatics. Believe me , they themselves read OTHER newspapers with pictures of women , as well as their 40,000 subscribers. It’s a shtick..!! From where do you think they get THEIR news , huh????
From news organizations to whom they subscribe who write and publish photos of women. Then they go and omit these female pictures. in the Shmamodia. Es fehlt nit kein tzidreiteh mentchen.
Anonymous said…
the reason why they don’t print pics. from Hillary, is because than they would need to do the same of Obama too, and they don’t want to waste so much black ink….
February 13, 2008 4:29 PM
Comments like that are disgusting and have no place in the observant Jewish world. Frankly, I am shocked that the moderators do not catch it before it went up and have allowed it to remain.
You might think your comments were funny but I have news for you: when you speak like a bigot you degrade youself much more than you degrade the person or people serving as the target of your foolishness.
Besides not having command of English, the poster does not have command of his senses.
We all know that it is important to think before you speak but in age of the internet we must start teaching our children to think before they click ‘send’.
I am old enough to remember when such speech was acceptable in white society and even parts of Jewish society. Thank G D that is not the situation. I for one would not hesitate to remove my child from a yeshiva that fostered such attitudes.
6:04PM-I was not trying to be nasty but I guess you could not help being nasty.
Keep it up. I am sure it will get you
a nice big desk in the next world.
But the Hamodia is the same paper that printed all the shmutz of Bill Clinton when he was impeached.
What a double standard the Hamodia has.
Is Hillary the same face that was across the street from Chaim Berlin?
If Hillary wins we won’t see her face for 4 years?
This should be guarded as GREAT NEWS! Keep it up Hamodia.
Who’s “Hillary”?
Sorry, 12:48, but if this post is an example of your English skills I can’t blame Hamodia for not hiring you. You probably have great skills in other areas, though!
Hey anonymous 3:27 the “big deal” of them not printing pictures of women is that none of the frum newspapers of magazines print pictures of women so there are no newspapers to choose from (other than the jewish press). Did it occur to you chachomim that maybe the epidemic of anorexia and other body issue problems are due to the fact that women are treated as something to be hidden and avoided in the frum world. This is a goyishe attitude that treat women as sex objects. Don’t women deserve recognition for their hard work with a picture in the newspaper? Everywhere I look I see pictures of frum men getting recognition. Men, please don’t erase us from the history of the Jewish people.
the reason why they don’t print pics. from Hillary, is because than they would need to do the same of Obama too, and they don’t want to waste so much black ink….
Hellloooo? So what is the big deal if they don’t print a photo of a woman. This is America. If you don’t like the paper, then buy another one. Obviously 45,000 people approve of their paper. If that is their market niche, then what difference does it make to you?
what a Kiddush Hashem! keep it up! (from a certain point of view I don’t really think that hillary or any other canditade is really interested in being covered in a jewish orthodox newspaper, after all for a non-jew a newspaper which sells “only” 45k pieces is a joke especially when in fact the daily homodia prints only 8k, so now tell me do they care for this small newspaper???? the goyisha papers print way way way much more!) chevre, its time for someone to publish a yiddish daily newspapper!
Neanderthals
There are fools and then there are frum fools. What will they invent next?
this shatnez paper that prints torah chasidos & apikorses as well
as pictures from the biggist zionim, why dont they print a picture from hillary?
Its an perversion of Halachah and tzinus. The idea that Mrs. Lichtenstein cannot speak to a reporter is absurb, especially when at the big party they threw last week featured a video that she did the voice-over for.
Further the idea not to show women is one thing, but not allowing female names on ‘by lines’ including editorals is absurd.
btw, I have said this months ago already, I sincerely believe that the reason the Clinton campaign has but bill out there, is that the Hamodia should be able to have a picture when writing about Hillary.
i belive they will have a big problem if it happens
great place to work which they would hire me. but they won’t wish then lots of luck