A couple of ultra-orthodox Jewish publications airbrush women out of news photos as a matter of policy. This time there’s a fuss because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason, director for counter-terrorism have been taken out of the famous “Osama killing” situation room photo (above in three versions). saying that altering photos is deceitful and also manipulative of history. But the marketing consultant for one of the newspapers says
that this is a modesty policy in the strictest interpretation of Jewish
law. Rabbi Miller adds that the newspaper’s publisher is a woman.Go figure!
I don’t see what the fuss is about. I did just the opposite with the photo- leaving out all the men–and the photo hardly changed in historic value: some people in a room are looking at something, and the photo by itself gives us no idea what! All three versions of this photo are meaningless.
By the way it is said that the White House has given a strict warning not to alter this photo. So not only is the photo meaningless, adding meaning is not even allowed. Anyway, if you see me handcuffed in court along with some ultra-orthodox Jews in orange suits, you’ll know why.
