Making Hillary Clinton Invisible: Is Criticism of Hasidism Antisemitism?
So I was reading this post over on Jezebel this morning about Orthodox Hasidic newspaper Der Tzitung editing the images of Hillary Clinton and counter-terrorism expert Audrey Thomason out of the photo of the Osama bin Laden raid Situation Room. Why? Because the paper doesn’t publish photos of women, of course. Pictures of women, apparently, are considered “sexually suggestive.”
The Photoshopping of history to remove women from the room is reprehensible, Hasidic Jewish paper or not, but it’s the comments section of the post that’s most interesting, as discussion quickly turns from a discussion on whether the paper was wrong to edit out the presence of two women to begin with to a heated debate on whether the very act of criticizing a Hasidic paper for acting according to Hasidic law amounts to anti-Semitism.
Years ago when I was working for Kodak, the company acquired a photo imaging company based in Israel, and our group had to adjust to working with a corporate culture imbued with ideas about gender relations with which most of us — including Jewish team members — were completely unfamiliar. The guys from Israel wouldn’t speak to or acknowledge women in meetings — even women who were high-ranking executives.
It was befuddling and more than a little infuriating to many of us on the team to be expected to respect and accommodate a “cultural difference” that completely devalued the female members of our team. I flat out told my boss I wouldn’t manage any project in which I was expected to work with men who refused to speak to me or acknowledge my existence, and I’d do the same today. Apart from the impracticality of being able to successfully manage a project when you have people on the team who won’t accept that you are in charge of things and work with you in that capacity simply because you have a vagina instead of a penis, I personally was just not willing to put myself in a situation of having to work in those conditions.
What do you think? Was the Jezebel poster anti-Semitic in calling out a Hasidic paper for photo-shopping the women out of the situation room? Or is the commenter who lambasted her way off base?
If any other religious newspaper pulled this (Christian, Islamic, etc), there would be no second-guessing any criticism. It’s sexism guised up in some myth about ‘putting women on a pedestal’. It’s still no different than any other excuse that religious fundamentalists use to disenfranchise women.
I think it is off base to for the Hasidic newspaper Der Tzitung to Photoshop the images of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and counter-terrorism expert Audrey Thomason out of an historic photograph of the Situation Room during the raid of bin Laden’s compound. They were not only being prejudice towards women, they were altering the facts of history by altering that photograph. I do not see how that newspaper can be viewed as serious journalism. “Without offense to friend or foe, I sketch the world exactly as it goes.”-Lord Byron has been the longstanding motto of our local newspaper. It represents the true spirit and end of journalism. Der Tziung has to acknowledge that they are in the United States of America where women are in offices of upmost importance and position and where dignity and equality is emphasized for all people. What do they do about family photos?
Also, I think Kim Voynar’s experience years ago at Kodak with Hasidic men of a Photo Imaging Company based in Israel was deplorable and not acceptable by business standards. Those men should have had the strength to step outside their comfort level to work with others in a cooperative effort to get a job done. Many of us have had to step outside our comfort level on a daily basis to work with team members who present a challenge to us. They may not share our values or sense of family commitment, may have a different lifestyle, sense of humor, different faith or denomination, or lack thereof, and different personality. These team members may be from differing walks of life, differing places of origin, and differing customs. There may be difference in age, gender, race, or ethnic origin. We do not have to marry any of these people or make them our best friends. But we all have to work together to accomplish a goal. It’s called being professional.
There should be OUTRAGE over this and to walk on egg shells just because it has a religious base and staff is only more of the same ole PCC (Political Correct Crap). If they can alter news they then become a political organization and SHOULD PAY TAXES like any other origination that does not follow their religious spouting crap.
Organized Religion is a plague.
I guess for me the issue is, to what extent should a person’s personal religious beliefs be allowed to bleed over into a business context, where they impact other people?
Put another way: What if instead of Hasidic Jews, these guys had been white supremacists, and had refused to speak to or acknowledge the existence of minorities in this same context? Would a corporation tolerate that?
Of course it is not antisemitic.
But if you are going to play that game, ask yourself “what semitic religion still actually stones women to death for fking?”
If your answer is, thats not fair I was trying to bash Jews! Then you have a problem.