Moetzes members are not only drawn from right wing of the Lithuanian ‘Yeshiva’ world, it also consists of Sephardic members as well as Chasidic members. In fact until his death, the Novominsker Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Perlow sat at the head of that august body.
The loyalty of their lay leadership to Daas Torah is something they never fail to mention. It is fair to say that you can’t get much further to the right in the Lithuanian Yeshiva world than Lakewood’s BMG. Their Rosh HaYeshiva, R’ Malkiel Kotler is a member of the Moetzes, too. So I have to wonder about the photo above. It is one of many taken at the 5th annual Yeshiva Summit. Which YWN describes as follows:
The Yeshiva Summit, a project of Agudath Israel of America’s Yeshiva Services department, is part of Agudah’s mission of advocating for schools across the spectrum of Torah Jewry.
I’m sure this is a valuable project that serves the observant Jewish community in New York quite well. I have always appreciated Agudah’s advocacy work on our behalf. (Even though they are very New York centric. So much so that sometimes it feels as though Orthodox Jewry outside of the New York /New Jersey area doesn’t exist for them. But I digress.
This post isn’t about their fine advocacy work which usually spills over to observant Jewry living outside of New York and New Jersey. It is about right wing publications like Mishpacha Magazine’s taboo against publishing any picture of a woman. Even if it is just a head shot.
Their claim of being Machmir (stringent) about matters of Tznius (modesty) does not hold water since Daas Torah does not consider it immodest. Not only are head shots of women OK, but full bodied pictures of men and women standing together in an integrated fashion smiling for the camera is OK. As the picture above indicates
What the Daas Torah of the Agudah Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah considers perfectly fine is not considered Tznius enough for the magazine’s rabbinic advisors. On the other hand the publication of a picture like that on a widely read Charedi website like YWN makes it perfectly clear that Daas Torah has no problem with it. YWN’s own rigorous modesty standards passes the test of filtering systems the Moetzes insists everyone must install on their devices. How then can Mishpacha’s rabbinic advisers claim that it is immodest? Are they Frummer (more religious) than the Moetzes?
I challenge them to answer this question.
The real answer should be obvious. A picture like the one above satisfies even the most stringent standards of modesty. What it does not satisfy is the extreme modesty standard of Satmar and like minded Chasidim. They read this magazine too. And they are a pretty large demographic It would hurt Mishpacha’s bottom line if this demographic stopped reading their magazine Publishing pictures of even a headshot of a female columnist the way they do for their male columnists might cause this demographic to boycott the magazine.
What about another demographic that reads this magazine but is on the other side of this issue? The Centrist Orthodox reader. (Those to their left do not tend to read magazines like this in any significant number - if at all.) Centrists might object to this policy. And for good reason.
Although a lot of women don’t really care - a lot do. To cite one example of why they do is the harm caused by a policy of never publishing a picture of a woman, There are childern’s books that feature illustrations of a Shabbos table that excludes the mother! Is that any way to present what a real Shabbos table should look like? What lesson does a child (boy or girl) take from that?
And then there’s this. What if the next president of the United States is a woman? There is a very distinct possibility that Nikky Haley could be that woman. It is not as much of a longshot as once thought. Will Mishpacha make an exception? If Tznius is really an issue, how could they?
I recall a discussion about that in Mishpacha. It was generated after Mishpacha was harshly criticized by their competitors for featuring a grotesquely distorted image of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on their cover during the 2016 presidential campaign. Not because it was so grotesque. But because it was a woman.
If they consider any picture of a woman to be immodest, than the president should be no exception. On the other hand they argued that it would be impossible to never feature a picture of the president of the United States just because she is a woman. At the very least it would be an insult to that leader.
They never had to answer that question because Trump won. But what if Haley wins?
I don’t think Tznius is the real issue. It is a bottom line issue. Their Satmar type demographic is a lot bigger then their Centrist demographic. Now there is nothing wrong with a bottom line. But they ought to stop waving the Tznius flag as their reason. As the above picture shows, it isn’t working.