– In which we note 3 “wins” for the good guys, including Malka Leifer’s extradition order and an order to Israeli health clinics to stop erasing women.
– In which we explain the new Seal of Respect, and the need for a counter market force.
– In which we invite you to become a Chochmat Nashim member.
– And in which we DISH on a couple of Chanukah touches we’re glad to share with you.
Music: “Misery” by The Whips
If a picture speaks a thousand words, these images scream volumes. Taken a few weeks ago in the ancient cemetery of Tsfat, they show two sides of the same grave. Rav Yosef Caro zt”l was a mystic, and the author of the Shulchan Aruch, among other works. Thousands come to pray at his graveside. Some have total access to the monument. They can touch it, kiss it, cry on it. Others can talk to the wall behind it.
I cannot think of a better pair of images to illustrate the state of Orthodoxy today, where there is one open accessed reality for men, and one increasingly restrictive reality for women.
You see, today, in Orthodoxy, a man can:
And a woman can:
And she cannot:
Should she seek to change these policies, and ask:
…she can expect to be called a “feminist with an agenda.”
Why are God fearing, religious women being increasingly shut out? Why are our motivations constantly and consistently questioned?
Why are the things that mean so much to us, walled off from us? And who gave the wall- builders that right?
Why is male access guaranteed, while female access shrinks?
The contrast between the way that the Orthodox community in general treats men with the way it treats women has never been stronger. Time and again, we see that men are “innocent until proven guilty.” It might be more accurate to say “innocent even when proven guilty.”
Yet for women, it is almost the opposite: women are “presumed guilty until proven innocent.” Even the wish to dance with a Torah scroll on Simchat Torah is considered subversive unless it can be “proven” to come from a pure, spiritual place.
Once we stood at Sinai together, men and women, “like one person with one heart.” Today, the heart of Orthodoxy is broken, splintered into a dangerous and gaping divide.
“What inspires you?” “Why do you stay Orthodox?” “What about single-sex spaces — aren’t they legitimate?” You asked, we answer. Anne, Shoshanna, and Rachel on the questions you posed to Chochmat Nashim. Listen and let us know what you think – we want to keep this conversation going.
Both the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America position themselves as rabbinic leadership for (at least) the Orthodox community in the United States. Both maintain that a key component of the Orthodox community is “listening to the rabbis.” Both have condemned in no uncertain terms the concept of Orthodox women clergy, and both have emphasized the vital position and importance of Jewish women in the community.
It baffles me, therefore, that neither the OU nor the RCA has taken a stand against the damaging practice of removing Jewish women and girls from publications that is taking over Orthodox society.
This practice began in the most insular Orthodox communities over the past two decades, and has now become the dominant practice of Orthodox publications, to the great dismay of Orthodox women everywhere.
Entire magazines are devoid of women. There are children’s books, textbooks, comics, and advertisements in which no mothers and no daughters are represented. Beautifully illustrated Shabbat zemirot booklets have grandfathers, fathers and sons; there are no grandmothers, mothers, or daughters. I even have an illustrated Megillat Esther sans Esther.
It’s a bizarre and sad world in which Jewish women are considered immodest, no matter how modestly they dress and act…
Both the OU and the RCA use glowing terms to depict Jewish women in their statements on women clergy:
From the OU: “…female role models are, of course, absolutely critical for the spiritual growth of our community. Communities depend, and have always depended, upon women’s participation in a wide array of critical roles, both lay and professional, that are wholly consistent with Torah’s guidelines.”
From the RCA: “…the Rabbinical Council of America encourages a diversity of halakhically and communally appropriate professional opportunities for learned, committed women, in the service of our collective mission to preserve and transmit our heritage….
Given their recognition of the importance of women in the community at large and their stated respect for women, I found it shocking when, earlier this month, the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Action magazine praised and highlighted the very publications that censor images of Jewish women and girls. The multi-page spread paradoxically spotlighted the women who work for these same publications, while ignoring the fact none of these women — or any other one — can appear in their own publications.
Mishpacha is one of the most prominent publications to omit images of women and girls. When it recently profiled Mrs. Yehudis Jaffe, the article was accompanied by photographs of the educator’s husband and father.
Similarly, in these publications, advertisements show smiling male professionals — real estate agents or dentists, for example — yet their female colleagues are represented by flowers, shapeless icons, or simply a name. The uneven portrayal of men and women doing the same job looks ridiculous, but worse is the fact that, since photographs are worth a thousand words of marketing, the female business owners are at a competitive disadvantage with regard to their market share, with reduced chances for livelihood and clientele.
Tens of thousands of Orthodox women, who adhere to the publications’ values outside of this deeply painful and humiliating policy, find the approach disturbing and puzzling. There are Facebook groups dedicated to the sole effort of changing these policies. These women want visible role models for their daughters. They want to see people they identify with in the pages of magazines. They are hurt and confused at the notion that the very presence of a modestly dressed Jewish woman — or girl– is taboo.
From the women themselves (ironically enough, names have been changed for their protection):
On finding Jewish women inappropriate and removing positive role models:
“I find it extremely distressing that you refuse to print pictures of girls over 6[-years-old] or appropriately dressed women. In a world where we are constantly bombarded with images of what women ‘should’ look like to be the ‘most’ attractive, it is even more important that our girls can look to frum media for appropriate role models.” — Dina
From a father and rabbi:
“…there is a stark difference between my reading experience and that of my wife and daughters, because whereas the main magazine contains pictures of male role models to whom I aspire, the Family First and Mishpacha Junior magazine don’t have pictures of female role models to whom my wife and daughters wish to aspire, and while ‘a picture tells a thousand words,’ it seems for women, they just have to settle with words. …Tzniut is a positive value, not a negative one, and by failing to publish pictures of tzanua women in your publication, the implied message is that no matter how appropriately dressed a woman is, she is still somehow doing something wrong. As someone who teaches young women in seminary, I assure you that whether this is your intended message, it is the message being received by young women — and even not so young women. The level of anxiousness about tzniut observance today, especially among young women, is unhealthily high, and there are many young women whose self-value and self-esteem is suffering for lack of confidence that they appear as they should, because they lack the examples and role models of what that actually means.” — Rabbi Solinsky
On feeling erased and having nothing to relate to:
“Your family magazine is positioned to show my daughters — and their future zivugim [marriage partners] — what Jewish women can be and should be, within the bounds of halacha. I wish that when my girls look in your magazine and see the amazing people and complex issues of the frum world, that they can begin to see themselves — their tafkid [purpose] — their unique path to avodas Hashem [service of God]. They should not grow up feeling like “strangers” in a world that simply erases them…Role models in Tanach [the Bible] exist, and are revered, but is that relatable? For my daughters, where are their people?” — Sarah
On the lack of halachic basis for censoring Jewish women:
“I do not see how you can justify this practice. To the best of my knowledge, it has no halachic basis and I challenge you to prove otherwise. Just as it was only a few generations ago that men and women sat together at wedding dinners but now are separated, so too, photos of “tzniusdik [modest] Jewish women are as hidden as — lehavdil, Muslim women under burkas. Before you roll your eyes at this, ask yourselves: to what further extent will Jewish women be hidden as they are? What will stop this trend toward narrower and narrower parameters?” — Bracha
On the objectification of Jewish women and girls:
“One of the things that pulled me towards Yiddishkeit [Judaism] from my secular life was what I was told about the status of women: how we were special, different but equal in importance, and how we would not be judged by our bodies but by our shining souls and personalities. It is something I hope to share with my children someday…
When you refuse to print pictures of women in your magazine, it goes against what I was taught. Instead, it shows that women are too dangerous to be seen, that we must be hidden away. This is judging women by their bodies, just as the secular culture I left does. It does not display that women are in any way equal… Not only are you putting women down, you are also doing the same to men. While not displaying pornographic images is clearly commendable, not displaying pictures of women at all implies that any sight of a woman is dangerous to a man, that he is totally incapable of controlling himself when confronted with an image of a properly dressed woman or girl. That too says that women are being judged. Being judged as dangerous..”– Chana
By the hundreds, frum women have contacted the publications to request a change in policy. The responses range from polite “thank you for your feedback” notes to the clear revelation that the feelings of the women for whom the magazines are designed are not important, and neither is halacha or hashkafa.
One example: The annual auction brochure published by Oorah, an organization designed to bring families and children opportunities to connect with their Jewish heritage, contains no images of women. Many, many women emailed the organization to express their dismay, and their intent not to contribute to the cause until pictures of females are returned to the publication. The formal response, received by many, according to their comments on one of those Facebook groups:
Thank you for contacting us. We struggle with this question every year. While we may not agree with it hashkafically, we recognize that, from a fundraising standpoint, it would turn off much of our donor base … we are following the decision of mainstream frum publications who have made this the standard in frum publications.”
Who created this particular standard? Donors? Advertisers? Who then needs rabbinic leadership, if economics drives Jewish policy?
The OU and RCA came out strongly against women clergy of any kind. Their numerous statements and 17-page paper on the matter make their position clear, even as the same documents praise Jewish women and proclaim that they are to be valued. Yet the concerns of the Orthodox women who look to the OU and RCA for rabbinic leadership — women who value Torah and tzniut and truth — are not even on the radar of these organizations. How else to explain their silence on this issue of censorship and objectification that matters so much to so many?
Without question, this policy of removing nearly all images of women and girls from Orthodox publications alienates Jewish women from those who represent Torah. To be clear: the same women that the OU and RCA respect for their place in tradition find themselves excluded by the extreme changes to that tradition, and cannot all remain committed to views that, in fact, are not tradition.
I urge the established Orthodox leadership, in the form of the venerable institutions of the OU and the RCA, to take a stand against this damaging practice of disappearing images of modest Jewish women from Orthodox publications, and stand up for the dignity of Jewish women.
Regarding the article thing about woman [sic] and breast cancer, that’s a sobering statistic. Of course it has nothing to do with what I wrote.
In his Mishpacha article, Sruli Besser reflects on his experience on “the other side of the mechitza” during his daughter’s Bais Yaakov graduation. Among the many rebuttals of his piece, which praises Jewish women for being pious and suffering subpar conditions in silence, several people noted that Haredi society’s negligence of women’s needs leads, among other things, to higher rates of breast cancer deaths in the community. According to Israeli studies, Haredi women die 30% more often from breast cancer than women in the general population.
Besser insists this has nothing to do with his jolting experience of what it’s like to be on the women’s side of the mechitza.
But it has everything to do with it.
There is a systemic problem of ignoring women’s experience in Orthodox Judaism, and it has far more severe consequences than stale cookies and poor air conditioning.
In Judaism, those who make policy for the entire community are men. Men, by virtue of being men, don’t experience Judaism as women do. This is natural.
What is not natural, however, is not listening when women describe their experience and ask for change. Communal and rabbinic leaders simply do not consult with women. They don’t allow for serious input from them, and they don’t hear from them about the consequences of communal policy and priorities. Thus, women’s needs come after a long line of other considerations and as a result, policy doesn’t take them into consideration.
This is wholly unnecessary and wrong. Moreover, the failure of policy and priority to consider women leads directly to many of the issues we face in Judaism today.
Policy fails Jewish women.
In marriage and divorce:
Religious courts often ignore the needs and wants of Jewish women and do not use their power to protect them where they should. As a stark example, earlier this year, in Jerusalem, a woman seeking a divorce from the husband who beat her, was refused by the rabbinical court which said, “since he only beat you because you asked for a divorce, you should go back to him and not ask for a divorce and then you won’t be beaten.”
In religious courts, get extortion is encouraged and judges who seekhalachic solutions to terrible situations are punished.
In women’s Jewish life:
Haredi political parties control the Rabbinate, and the Rabbinate controls all Jewish ritual life. Though they purport to represent all those who practice Torah Judaism (including women), no women are on any committee or allowed onto any haredi political party list.
During a Knesset meeting to discuss a Supreme Court case brought by religious women to improve services and practices in the mikvaot, MK Moshe Gafni looked around the room, packed with religious women seeking change and said, “there are no problems in the mikvah!”
A law passed only a few years ago placed women on the committee to elect religious court judges for the first time. It guarantees four out of the 11 spots to women. Haredi MKs who opposed the law when it was created are trying to reverse this decision to weaken women’s representation.
In women’s health:
In Israel, Haredi women rank 8th for life expectancy. Haredi men rank 2nd. The disparity is huge.
Yet, not one haredi MK has yet attended the committee on women’s health in the Knesset. The Minister of Health is himself haredi.
‘Kosher’ radio stations won’t say the words ‘breast cancer’ and events on fertility and women’s reproductive health are routinely held with no women presenters or women in the audience.
Haredi women develop breast cancer less often than the general population, yet they die 30% more often. This is a fact confirmed by three medical studies in Israel. The high morbidity rate can be attributed to a number of factors, from poor knowledge of the disease, to the fact that it is considered immodest to talk about, to the intense pressure the community has to appear healthy for marriage matches, to the refusal of many to allow for awareness raising. All of these communal issues add up to women dying.
In the obsession with ‘modesty’:
Women and girls are hurt, confused, and outraged at being blurred or photoshopped out of existence. Yet, when they speak out against the practice, their voices and protests are dismissed. Boys are taught that they cannot look at or see women. They are trained to not see or relate to them, and the balance of society is upended with Jewish women being portrayed as objects of sin to be avoided and shunned.
This leads, as we see in Bet Shemesh, to justifying verbal assault and even violence as men and boys scream ‘shikse’ and throw trash and rocks at girls and women who don’t look the way they think they should.
* * *
Besser says that Halacha is perfect.
This is not about changing Halacha.
This is about changing social policy and priorities towards a more just Jewish society.
When Bnot Zelafchad came to Moshe and all of the communal leaders to claim their portions of the Land of Israel, they said: “Our father died in the desert… has no son. Why should the name of our father be omitted from among his brothers because he had no son? Give us a portion among our father’s brothers.”
Moshe did not dismiss them saying, “The Torah is perfect, accept your lot.” He took their voices seriously, and the law was amended according to their logic and arguments.
For Judaism to thrive, we must end this culture of ignoring women’s experiences.
For Judaism to be healthy, we need to have women’s voices and images as a full part of Judaism.
For Judaism to be just, women must be a part of the process of policy and standardization.
Change on the ground starts with change in the conversation — and that conversation must include the Orthodox Jewish woman’s voice.
See the original article in The Times of Israel
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