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| Miriam Schwab (Jewish Journal) |
While I may differ somewhat with the Hashkafa of Ner Israel,
I would agree that they do indeed produce the type of mainstream Charedi Jews I
have called moderate. And have said about them that they will (and already have
begun to) comprise that vast majority of Orthodox Jews in America.
These are
people who went to Charedi Yeshivos, buy into their philosophy and have nonetheless
taken on many of the modalities of the Modern Orthodox world. They have for
example pursued higher education for purposes of having professions and careers
that will give them the kind of income that will enable them to better support
their families. And they tend to also participate somewhat in the general
culture. In other words they are more or less ‘normal’ by societal standards
and their lifestyles are hardly distinguishable from Centrists - the more right
wing element of Modern Orthodox Jewry.
This is what the world of the right seems to be veering away
from. They are (intentionally of otherwise) trying to ‘normalize’ behavior that
is anything but normal by societal standards. I believe that the above mentioned
rabbinic leader would be appalled at this phenomenon.
The most obvious manifestation of this (which has
been discussed here at length) is the erasure of women. A phenomenon adopted by
the Charedi glossies that publish slick looking weekly magazines using high end
graphics and some pretty good reporters and columnists albeit with a clear
Chardei bias on everything they write. These magazines do not feature pictures
of any women at all, no matter how modestly they are dressed. Not even a ‘head-shot!
They have explained that they do it for modesty reasons. But although they may deny it, I believe it is done as well (if not more so) for the
purpose of attracting a very large market. A segment of the Charedi world that I would not call
mainstream at all. A segment that tends
to look at general society as so terrible they fence themselves off from it as
much as possible. They tend to live in isolated communities - separate and
apart from any of its influences. They tend to look and dress as differently
from the rest of society as they can in order to further to distance themselves
from it. (For example they see wearing a typical conservative men’s suit as
Chukas HaGoy of which the Torah warns us to stay away from. The Yeshiva world
does not consider modern day clothing of that type to fall into that category
at all.)
I believe that this is the segment these Charedi
glossies wish to attract – knowing that they will not buy their magazines if
there are any pictures of women in them.
Now it is completely within the rights of any community to
set up any standard they wish to live by… and just as acceptable for magazines to
cater to those standards for purposes of increasing their bottom line. Provided it does not impact negatively on Judaism
as a whole. When it does, I think it has
to be protested and even fought by doing whatever can be legally done to end
such practices. I have tried to do that here many times. But I have zero
influence on any of these magazine to change their policy. Following my lead
would in any case cost them their more extreme Charedi readership. Which happens
to be the fast growing Orthodox demographic in the world!
But is the bottom line always the most impotent thing a
magazine should consider? Or is it how that specific bottom line mentality affects
the rest of us? My answer is that
although I am a big fan of ig bottom lines, some things are worth sacrificing it
for. And in my view it wouldn’t be that much of a sacrifice since I believe
that they will make some of their lost readership by increased Modern Orthodox
readership.
More importantly is that by featuring pictures of women they
will be restoring normalcy to mainstream Orthodoxy. And hopefully help to change
the direction other organization might be taking in order to not be ‘out-frummed’
by these glossies.
Which brings me to Miriam Schwab. The Jewish Journal reports that she was
approached by one of those glossies about doing a feature on her new startup. The
first question she asked them was if her picture would be included. They said
no. From the Jewish Journal here is what followed:
I can’t and I won’t be in a publication that has a discriminatory policy against women,” Schwab said, even though she covers her hair and is the granddaughter of the rabbi who founded Toronto’s chapter of Agudath Israel, the group that advocates on behalf of Orthodox Jewry.
While Schwab acknowledged the importance of the piece, she couldn’t in good conscience accept the offer.
“In Judaism there has never been a concept of a woman covering her face,” she said. “That’s not Judaism; that’s a perversion of Judaism. It’s extremism.” She added that the Torah wouldn’t mention the matriarchs’ beauty if it was immodest.
“Women always had a voice in Judaism, and they should continue to have that,” she said. “In terms of humanity, our faces are our identity, it’s how we recognize people. And when you take that away, you take away our identity.”
I don’t know Mrs. Schwab or anything about her. But She is
my new hero. She had the courage to stand up to the current spirit of the Charedi
world and say, ‘No!’ To put doing the right thin’ ahead of money. Which would
have been the obvious clear benefit to what
would have amounted to a huge free ad in a widely circulated magazine for her
new company.
The next step would be for more ‘Miriam Schwabs’ to stand up
and say, ‘No!’ – I am not going to participate in the erasure of woman and
reject any offer to do a story on them. It would even help if men would say the same
thing to them. Because that would clearly affect their bottom line of enough
people did that. And if they would change their policy, it might just be the first
step - tiny though it may be - in restoring normalcy to the mainstream.
