They Don't Get the Picture - an Essay on the Issue of Pictures of Women in Religious Publications

They Don’t Get the Picture

By Eliakim Willner

Eliakim Willner is author of “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv HaTorah: An Appreciation of Torah Study”, a translation with commentary of a work by the Maharal of Prague, published by Artscroll/Mesorah. He has published numerous articles in a variety of Jewish publications.

A Time to Respond

As readers of this publication know, it has become common for many Chareidi publications to refrain from publishing pictures of women. Predictably, as is the case with other issues in our community that seem to impinge on “liberal” values that the secular world hold sacred – such as “feminist rights” – this issue has been escalated to the secular Jewish media and, again predictably, the chorus of condemnation has begun.

Often it is best to simply ignore comments from people who do not understand what makes the frum community tick, and whose sole interest is to criticize, not to understand. But sometimes the criticism seems to come from within, from people who purport to belong to the frum community, and other members of our community are swept along with the tide, and misguided efforts to “protest” and “repeal” the new “repressive” policy are launched. This is what is happening now with the issue of pictures of women in frum publications.

In such situations it is important to counter the criticism, provide a basis for our position and prevent well-meaning but ill-informed members of our community from being led astray by individuals who may be motivated by values antithetical to genuine Torah values.

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

The impetus for this article is a piece that recently appeared in a popular secular Jewish publication titled, “Who needs rabbinic leadership? A call for Orthodox organizations to heed the voices of the women they cannot see”. The publication has given it a great deal of publicity and it has generated much comment. Negative articles about Orthodox Jews likely provide this publication a great deal of revenue so they play them up as much as they can.

The irony of the title is that it is strongly evocative of a Gemara in Sanhedrin 99b, which pastes a very unattractive label on someone who asks the question, “Who needs Rabbinic Leadership” but the irony is probably lost on the author of the article. I do not know the author of the article personally and it is not my place to paste labels on her. But despite her claim to be religious, and despite the tichel she sports in the biographic photo that accompanies her articles, her collection of pieces for this publication are a litany of complaints and fault-finding with the Rabbinic leadership of the frum community, which she portrays as self-centered, venal, cowardly, short-sighted and cruel. Indeed, “Who needs Rabbinic Leadership” is a recurrent theme in almost everything she writes. Does the Gemara’s label fit her? Judge for yourself.

The author cynically complained that no frum publication would accept her article so she was “forced” to place it in where she did, notwithstanding the chillul Hashem that was generated. The implication was that there was a conspiracy of silence in the frum publications about this issue. Nonsense! Given the author’s track record and agenda, is it any wonder that no frum publication wants to go near her with a 10-foot pole?

I ask the frum women who have joined this person’s crusade for “photo equality”: is this really someone you want to be following? Don’t you realize that although this issue may seem important to you, your “leader” has a larger agenda, one that is antithetical to Jewish values, and by joining this battle with her, you are joining her war?

The Big Lie

The article, and another article by the author on the same subject, in the same publication, contend that the motivation behind the policy to refrain from publishing photos of women is greed. The publications, she says, are afraid that consumers in Lakewood and Brooklyn will stop buying them if they publish pictures of women, the advertisers will stop advertising in them and oy vey, they will go out of business. So the publications kowtow to the ignorant demands of unnamed people with misplaced frumkeit. The Rabbis lack the guts to protest, she maintains, and by their silence they are allowing the community to spiral back into the dark ages.

There is so much sheker in that argument that it is difficult to know which lie to debunk first. Let’s start with the idea that the hamon demands higher standards of tznius to the point of rising up and boycotting publications that do not provide those levels. Halevai that were the case! In fact, unfortunately, our Rabbonim constantly have to fight the incursion of non-frum values into our community that negatively affect our observance of tznius! 

Besides, let’s take a step back and examine what would have had to happen here if this charge were true. Some brilliant publisher would have had to say to himself, “Hmm, how can I get a larger market share? I know! I’ll eliminate pictures of women!” How bizarre! Why would any publisher think that this would attract readers? There is no precedent for anything like this. And if it was done for market share, don’t you think the publisher would have publicized it? “Buy Mishpacha, the one and only magazine with no pictures of women!” There was no such publicity.

And did anyone stop to think that most of the readers of  these magazines are women, and the women would probably not be impressed by elimination of pictures of women the publications they read?

The idea that grassroots pressure created this policy, and/or the publishers jumped on it to get a leg up on the competition is too ludicrous to be believed.

The corollary lie is that the Rabbonim are silent on this matter. Not only are they not silent, they have actively advocated for this change! I have not polled all the publications that no longer include pictures of women but I am aware of at least two of them that have implemented this policy on the advice of their Rabbis – and these are Rabbis that are universally revered not only in the Charedi community but in the larger Orthodox community as well. I am sure that this is the case with most if not all of the other publications who have followed suit.

Far from being gutless, these Rabbis understood full well that there would be elements that would loudly and obnoxiously oppose the change, yet they persisted with it l’shaim shomayim and l’toeles of the communities they serve.

The Rabbis Have No Right!

Among the correspondents who weighed in on the article are several who trotted out the old canard, “show me in the Shulchan Aruch”, meaning that if a practice does not appear explicitly in the Shulchan Aruch it isn’t binding on them. What breathtaking amharatzus! I refer them to the first Mishna in Avos, “asu syog laTorah”, make a fence to protect the mitzvos of the Torah. The Gemara in Yevamos 21a derives this obligation from the posuk, (Vayikra 18:30), “ushmartem es mishmarti”, “You should guard my mitzvos”. Chazal teach us (Avos d’Rav Nosson 2:1) that the Torah itself provides a precedent for syogim for gilui arayos.

Torah leaders in all communities are enjoined to exercise this obligation to enact takanos, based on their knowledge of the people in their charge, and the challenges that they face, to protect them from aveiros. This is nothing new. Chazal have done this from time immemorial. To question Chazal’s right – Chazal’s obligation – to enact takanos is to question a fundamental principle of Judaism, emunas chachamim, without which we would have perished as a people eons ago.

The article author clearly has no problem denying emunas chachamim. Do her supporters realize that they are implicitly doing the same when they follow her lead?

True, a new policy change may take some getting used to. But let’s put things in perspective. Our grandmothers in pre-wars Europe were far more practiced in tznius than we are. Sarah imeinu stayed indoors when her husband Avrohom, was entertaining guests and the Torah is at pains to tell us this to emphasize her praiseworthy quality of modesty. We would consider such a practice quaint, or worse. We would claim that there is no precedent! Imagine the brouhaha if there was a policy change to adopt that practice universally!

We are very far from the level of Sarah and almost as far from the level of our grandmothers. The wars destroyed much of the basic fabric of our tznius, which is one of the signature traits of being a Jew. Our Torah leaders have spent the past century painstakingly nudging us back to where we were. Their job has not been made any easier by the decaying morals of the societies that surround us.

This policy change is another step in that process. You don’t understand why this particular policy change is necessary at this particular time? Keep two things in mind: 1) If you want to know, ask. Our Gedolim are accessible. Sincere questions, asked with an attitude of a genuine quest to understand daas Torah are generally answered. But keep in mind the second thing: 2) You are not “owed” an answer. Emunas chachamim means that we accept and follow daas Torah even if we do not have, or do not understand reasons. Suppress your ego. Acknowledge that people who are much better qualified than you are to understand what our tzibur needs have come to a decision and your wisest course is to follow it, just as you would follow the advice of an expert doctor, whether your understood it or not.

But Why?

I do not speak for the Rabbonim who instituted this policy change. But here is my personal attempt at explaining why it is not the unreasonable and “discriminatory” dictate that some are attempting to make it out to be.

Most of the dissenters argue that Rabbis of previous generations never instituted such a policy. What changed? First of all, newspapers and magazines did not start printing photographs until the early 1900’s. Color photographs did not become widespread in these publications until the 1960’s. Frum newspapers and magazines did not hit their stride until the 1980’s. Thus the need to consider a potential problem is relatively new. Scattered photographs here and there do not justify consideration of a policy change.

Besides, look at the pictures of frum women taken in the early 1900’s. The pictures are black-and-white. The women look like they are wearing sacks. Their expressions are dour. No make-up is visible. Contrast that to the full-color pictures in magazines today, even frum magazines. Usually the women are dressed, made up and posed to be as attractive as possible. It is entirely plausible that they could evoke improper thoughts even in a normal, healthy, religious man – in today’s day and age where even the most careful man is bombarded by inappropriate images all day and every day?

We Don’t Do It!

And if you belong to a tzibur where there is no such policy change, do not smirk. It does not mean that your tzibur is “better”. It may very well mean that your Rabbinic leaders realize that you would not obey that policy change if they issued it so they feel constrained to hold back. (I make this remark is response to correspondents from a certain tzibur in Israel who deride our Torah leaders for enacting this policy change. Yet this tzibur has a shockingly high attrition rate, especially post-army, and especially in areas of prohibited relations. This tzibur would seem to need all the help it could get in the area of tznius, and if its esteemed Rabbonim are holding back, it is no credit to the tzibur!)

The Spurious Argument

One of the arguments used to insidiously inveigle well-meaning women to the “photo equality” campaign is the role model claim, which makes the campaign sound holy and l’shaim shomayim. “Our husbands and sons have role models in the Jewish magazines”, the argument goes, “and we want role models also, for ourselves and our daughters, so we can grow in ruchnius!” This argument collapses under even the slightest scrutiny.

In the first place, if you want a role model for your daughter, Mom, you want a mirror, not a magazine! YOU are supposed to be the primary role model for your daughter and she sees you up close and personal all the time. To supplement, your daughter has her moros and teachers in her Bais Yaakov, whom she also sees in living color every day.

Add to that the many role models she learns about in Bais Yaakov. The imahos. The nevios. Sarah Schneirer and other heroines whose lives are worth emulating. No, the chumash does not have photos of the imahos or the nevios. Did that stop several millennia of Jewish women from looking up to them as role models? It did not! So why should it stop you, or your daughter!

This argument is nothing more than sucker bait to entice frum women to join in what is, to put it bluntly, a feminist campaign for “equality” with all the hashkafic problems that entails. Most of the good women who are writing letters to newspapers to protest the no-pictures-of-women policy with the “role model” argument are tools in the hands of people with an anti-religious agenda. Ladies, you are being used! Time to stand up and protest – not to the newspapers but to the cynical people with an agenda, who are trying to use you as tools.

Postscript

I would like to award a lump of coal to the Rabbinical Council of America (if the reader doesn’t understand the lump of coal reference, fine, the good Rabbis who head the RCA will certainly understand it) for their prompt issuance of a response to the article. Did they condemn the author for attempting to, yet again, further her anti-frum agenda? No! Instead, they piously declared, “we don’t do that” and had the temerity to add, “…we are of the opinion that it is important for every member of the Orthodox community to have women and men of integrity, piety, learning, and public [sic] serve as role models. This includes the names, ideas, and faces of women in publications.” Thanks for telling us what to do, guys! And which Gedolim did you consult on this matter?

I would like to conclude with a quote from a gadol of the previous generation:

“The attribute of tznius causes much good in this world, and because of that it is permitted to push away many things that would have been worthwhile in and of themselves, because man’s weaknesses would cause him to cross the boundaries of tznius which uphold the existence of the spiritual and material world. The attributes of love and friendship in all its comfortable actions and conversations, should have been equal between the genders, but it is because of the great value of tznius that derech eretz is sometimes pushed aside so much so that one doesn’t even ask about the welfare of a woman. The tzanua person knows that it is not because of the derision of the opposite sex that he keeps his distance and erects barriers, but because of the greater goals of tznius.”

Who wrote that? The Satmar Rebbe? Brisker Rav? No, it was written by Rav Avrohom Yitzchok Kook z’tl, in his in Middot Haraya (translation by Chana Sosevsky, from her article on tznius in the Fall 2001 issue of Jewish Action).

May all members of klal yisroel, from all our camps, be zoche to take these words to heart.