Hillary Clinton Disappears From the Picture

This is a picture of senior officials in the White House’s “situation room.” It was broadcast by most of the media and was commented on by a lot of people, and as a result, millions of people have seen it. It was taken by the White House’s photographer Pete Souza and sent to the media.

In this story, one particular newspaper distinguished itself. Published in Brooklyn, the Di Tzeitung is a newspaper for the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Like the rest of the press, Di Tzeitung published the famous photograph of Obama and his team and pored over the death of Osama bin Laden. The only difference in the photograph published by this particular newspaper and the rest of the media is that Di Tzeitung edited the photograph and removed Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason, the director for counter-terrorism. The alteration is based on what the religious laws of this ultra-Orthodox community calls “modesty.”

This delicate retouch did not go unnoticed. The blog “Failed Messiah,” which covers Orthodox Judaism since 2004, made a big deal of the alteration and mentioned that such an act was illegal. As a matter of fact, the text accompanying the original photo on Flickr clearly states the picture should not be manipulated, although it is copyright-free.

But is this a problem of intellectual property? No, responded a feminist Jewish association, The Feminist Jewish Orthodox Alliance. A person in charge for this association was upset by this approach. When interrogated by CNN’s blog dedicated to religious issues, she said, “I feel like the men don’t even want the ladies to be in the same room as them.” Literally and figuratively. “This picture goes further by denying history, by overshadowing important women present in this historical moment in the White House.”

The ultra-Orthodox newspaper was forced to apologize because it had violated the rules imposed by the White House.

Di Tzeitung explained:

“Realizing the historical importance of this picture, our photo researcher published it in haste. He had not read the term of use, which prohibited any alterations. We simply wanted to honor our president and our armed forces on this historical moment. So we published the picture without the two women, according to our editorial policy.”

The newspaper did not budge, however: Women do not belong in the pages of this publication. “The readers of Di Tzeitung believe that women should be appreciated for who they are and what they do, not for how they look,” the statement said, recalling that Jewish laws do not tolerate discrimination based on gender, race, etc …