The smiles we will never see

It may make some of us uncomfortable, but none of us is surprised any longer that there are newspapers that serve the Haredi community in which women are invisible or are made to disappear. There are, of course, sociological, theological, and behavioral consequences to that practice. Still, pressure will not change it; the more pressure, the more self-righteous the push-back.

I am looking at one such English language paper that serves New York and New Jersey. To give you an idea of its policies, a recent letter to the editor pointed out that the only woman who ever appears in any of the paper’s pages should be dressed more modestly; apparently this older woman showed too much neck. The editor agreed, and from that point on the woman appeared in a more acceptable style of dress. And she keeps on smiling – because she is a cartoon character.

In a recent round-up of school photos sharing the pride and achievements of local students, there were two pictures from a school that has separate boys’ and girls’ divisions, nothing unusual there. The boys were endearing. But the girls showed only their little hands holding the artwork that they created for Rosh HaShana. Anything above or below their artwork was cropped out. I believe the school’s original photo included their smiling faces; its own website certainly has many such pictures.

I looked at the photo in the newspaper and tried to imagine what those girls were thinking and feeling when their teacher took the photo. I am sure they were smiling. More than just smiling instinctively, I imagine these girls were genuinely happy.  Happy to be with their friends. Happy that their teacher brought them together to mark the moment. I think these girls were proud. Proud that their work was worthy of a photo. Proud that their parents would see the photo and might show it off to their friends.

But all we saw in the paper was a photo of little hands holding little sheets of artwork. No faces. No bodies. No happiness. No pride. The caption reads, in part, “each girl wrote something unique about herself and added it to a large flame. Alone, each spark is special – but together, they make the flame glow even brighter.”

What this newspaper did was to suck that uniqueness out of each of these girls. They discarded their souls on the cutting room floor, neglected like so much scrap. This is not new. I’ve seen women vanish from papers like this one, but this particular picture evoked a reaction that I never had before. These are happy Jewish girls. These are proud Jewish girls. But we can only imagine that now. All of that disappeared with someone’s scissors.

This post is not about the paper’s policy; it’s not even about the picture. It’s about those little girls. I’m sure they were happy. But this makes me sad.

Today those girls are learning to expect such neglect. Over time they will learn to accept it. And that makes me sadder still.