“If a man cannot look at a woman and say ‘What a healthy and handsome woman the Almighty has created,’ then I do not know what is happening to us. And I fear that if this continues, we will have to veil our faces!”
Soon All Female Haredim Will Be Forced To Wear Veils, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s Daughter Says
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Adina Bar Shalom, the daughter of the late founder and spiritual leader of the Sefardi haredi Shas Party Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, lashed out today against the exclusion of women from haredi public life, including photoshopping females – even female infants – out of news photos or blurring out their faces and clothed bodies.
Bar Shalom said she was “greatly ashamed” that the Shas Party’s newspaper “Yom L’Yom” (“Day to Day”) published a censored photograph of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s newly-appointed cabinet ministers with the faces of the three female ministers blurred out, the Times of Israel reported.
Bar Shalom noted that her late father reacted with shock and anger after he saw that a photo of his family had been published by a haredi paper with the faces of his wife and mother blurred out.
“What nerve! Neither of them are [even] alive anymore! What is this supposed to be? In the end, all [women] will be in veils!” Bar Shalom said Rabbi Yosef exclaimed with shock and in disgust at the time.
Bar Shalom expressed her own anger and frustration with the ever-increasing haredi censorship of women and echoed her father’s fear of what it all could lead to.
“If a man cannot look at a woman and say ‘What a healthy and handsome woman the Almighty has created,’ then I do not know what is happening to us. And I fear that if this continues, we will have to veil our faces,” Bar Shalom said. She noted that while there are strong internal objections to the haredi censorship and related issues, haredim have used fear and intimidation to silence it.
Like Yom L’Yom, all other haredi newspapers and magazines and most haredi news websites published only censored photos of the new cabinet.
Bar Shalom, an Israel Prize winner, made her remarks Friday while participating in a panel discussion on Judaism, Zionism and Israel at the Yitzahak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv.