By Mrs. S.O.F.A. [Super Outspoken Feminist Activist]
Two years ago, a woman wrote to tell Chochmat Nashim that she tried to place an advertisement for a Yom Iyun (a day of study) on the back page of the Orthodox Union’s Torah Tidbits. (Torah Tidbits is a weekly booklet, distributed to synagogues in Israel with a critical mass (however that is determined) of English speakers. It contains divrei Torah, words on the parsha, and many ads.) She said her request was denied because her ad included a picture of a woman and they did not show images of women on the back page.
Torah Tidbits is an old friend, a staple of Orthodox Anglo Israeli Jewry. For decades, it has been distributed to nearly all Orthodox Anglo shuls and many Anglo homes each week. From their site: “Torah Tidbits is the largest weekly English language Torah publication in Israel, reaching over 400,000 readers country-wide.” Was it possible that they were intentionally blocking images of women from the booklet’s covers?
The woman’s conversation had taken place over the phone, and we needed to be sure that excluding women from the back page was actually policy and not just a misunderstanding.
Chochmat Nashim therefore submitted an ad for the back page — including photographs of modestly dressed women. The ad was declined — we were told the page was booked for weeks (totally possible). When we asked for the next open date, however, we were first offered other pages and then stopped receiving responses to our emails. Eventually, I received a phone call from an executive inviting me to the office to discuss “things you and I understand”.
We spoke (over WhatsApp, in the end) for more than 45 minutes. The executive explained that he had decided to remove women from the back page after feedback from a man who claimed that the women on the back cover distracted him from his prayers when he saw the publication in shul (the images of columnists on the front cover are tiny, and so presumably less distracting). The executive wanted to bring “OU Torah” to as many communities as possible, and removing women from the back cover was a “sacrifice he was willing to make,” towards that goal.
I observed that the Orthodox Union is a mainstream Orthodox institution, indeed supported by women via their shopping! Moreover, the OU is meant to represent the women of the mainstream congregations — women like me — and that the OU had never before taken the position that women’s images should not be seen. It seemed, I said, that he was going against the values of the OU and sacrificing those of us in his base in his attempt to reach those who were not his base.
I explained that the erasure of women and girls is a demeaning and dangerous trend, one we need to stand against, rather than join and justify. When he insisted that not having women on the back page was not the same as erasing women, I noted that it was exactly the same, that his line was simply at a slightly different place in the sand. As he was not inclined to rethink his approach to the back cover, I requested that Torah Tidbits, at the least, keep all images of people off the back cover — a difficult approach in advertising, perhaps, but equitable (or equally inequitable) for men and women.
In that same conversation, I noted the dearth of women writers in Torah Tidbits: columns by men far outnumbered those by women. He responded that he wanted more women writers, but they had not found suitable candidates, as the writing would be held to a high standard, with no monetary compensation (I do not know if they pay any columnists).
And so Chochmat Nashim began a long and detailed investigation into (some of) the publishing practices of Torah Tidbits.
Tracking both the appearance of women’s images on the front and back covers, as well as the number of divrei Torah authored by women per issue, we discovered that, over time, women’s visibility had declined, as had the percentage of women writers (one regular female columnist does not allow her image to be printed anywhere).
Chochmat Nashim reached out to some of the most accomplished and suitable female Torah scholars who had written for our long-running “parsha initiative” (with the Orthodox Leadership Project/OLP), published on the Blogs of The Times of Israel, to ask if they would be willing to write for Torah Tidbits, and if so, to be in touch with the OU office. Seven wrote to the OU to offer their divrei Torah services, and each was told that Torah Tidbits was not looking for more writers.
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From the comments:
Per grim, unassailable statistics, Israeli men account for virtually all of Israel's war dead and wounded in Gaza and Lebanon since October 7, 2023. What kind of gender equity is that? As the Movement for Quality Government in Israel has observed, "Sharing the burden [of military service] equally is an existential necessity for the State of Israel and Israeli society, and there is no way to achieve it other than the enactment of a uniform and equal enlistment law that will apply to all....” Consistent with the foregoing, Israeli women should be subject to the same, not less onerous, military service obligations as Israeli men are subject to, with the same, not more liberal, exemptions. Anything less cannot be reconciled with the concept of "sharing the burden equally." Indeed, the grossly unequal sacrifice made of/by Israel's male soldiers in defending the freedom and lives of all Israelis flies in the face of any notion of gender equity/equality in Israeli society. One can only wonder whether the author of the blog has any concern about that and the absolute erasure of men's lives.
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My take:
1] Torah Tidbits is FULL of pictures of women [including on the front cover] and articles by them, unlike just about every other parsha pamphlet. They are an inappropriate target.
2] *MAYBE* we have a mechitza in shul so that men don't look at women during davening. And maybe the corollary is that we shouldn't be subject to having pictures of them all over shul.
3] As a 17 year old I applied to 19 different seminaries in Israel and was rejected by ALL OF THEM even though I had great grades and letters of recommendation from my teachers. The reason given: My gender. SHAMEFUL!!!!
4] Kedusha is expressed, among other things, by not looking at women [unless necessary]. Sorry lady.
No offense.
5] לענין איסור הסתכלות לכו"ע המסתכל באשה אפילו באצבע קטנה כיון שמסתכל בה להנות עובר בלאו דלא תתורו אחרי עיניכם ואמרו שאפילו יש בידו תורה ומע"ט לא ינקה מדינה של גיהנם וראיה בעלמא לפי תומו בלא נהנה שרי אם לא מצד המוסר ובספר מנחת שמואל הוכיח דאדם חשוב יש לו ליזהר בכל גווני. וכתב הפמ"ג דבמקומות שדרך להיות מכוסה [כגון זרועותיה וכה"ג שאר מקומות הגוף] אף ראיה בעלמא אסור וכתבו הפוסקים דבתולות דידן בכלל נידות הם משיגיעו לזמן ווסת ובכלל עריות הם: [מ"ב ע"ה ז']
