Newspaper in Israel Scrubs Women From a Photo of Paris Unity Rally JERUSALEM — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany was right there next to the president of France on Sunday, marching through the streets of Paris for all the world to see — all the world, that is, except the readers of an ultra-Orthodox newspaper in Israel. The newspaper, HaMevaser, altered a third-page photograph of the march to remove Ms. Merkel and other female leaders, setting off snickers and satire on social media. Ultra-Orthodox publications generally avoid pictures of women for reasons of modesty, and their intended audience has been known to scratch women’s faces out of bus advertisements and to bar them from running for public office in their parties. But some people saw the deletions from the Paris photograph as a more serious sin. Apparently deleted along with Ms. Merkel were: the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo; a European Union official; and Simonetta Sommaruga, the president of Switzerland. An Irish satirical news source, Waterford Whispers, responded by posting its own “feminist newspaper photoshop,” featuring the same Paris street scene with three female leaders depicted, but no men. Rama Burshtein, an ultra-Orthodox filmmaker whose 2012 movie “Fill the Void” won international acclaim, said in an interview that the alteration of the photo would make perfect sense to the newspaper’s readers. “It’s very, very, very, very, very hard for a nonreligious person to understand the purity of eyes,” Ms. Burshtein said. “By us, men don’t look at women’s photos, period. As long as you don’t know that, then it sounds ridiculous, or changing history or events. But we’re not here to get the events the way they are. We are here to keep the eyes.”
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 20:31:43 +0000
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