As I said yesterday, this week's Yated has a wealth of blog material in the "Readers Write" section. Yesterday's letter was about science. Today's letter was going to be about parenting, but it seems that Sephardi Lady has beaten me to the punch on that. So, I'll go on to the next one. I've transcribed it below. Any typos are my own.
The Yated editors titled it "False Titles." I would have gone with "Get A Life."
Dear Editor,
I recently noticed a certain advertisement for a yeshiva dinner in your newspaper. Among the honorees are two couples being honored as "Parents of the Year." There are pictures of both husbands, but not their wives. Incredibly, under the pictures of the husbands is the title "Mr. and Mrs...." When did a man become both husband and wife?
Seriously, I understand your policy not to display pictures of women and I commend you for it. Nevertheless, if you are not prepared to show a picture of the wife as well, it would be better not to show a picture at all. Above all, it is sheker to give a title "Mr. and Mrs..." underneath a picture of only the husband. No chumrah should ever override an issur from the Torah, in this case midevar sheker tirchok.
To be frank, I don't hold of the chumra of not posting photos of women. But then again, it's not my paper, so my opinion doesn't really matter. However, I don't think anyone is being deceived by the Yated posting a picture of a man and labeling it as "Mr. and Mrs..." What next, call it sheker if someone uses an idiom because some idiot might understand it literally? Oh wait, we already covered that...
The Wolf
4 comments:
It's probably a troll, just like Zylberberg's letter.
Maybe he ate her. ;)
Or could it be that they take Ishto c'gufo (a wife is considered like part of her husband's body) WAY too literally?
I guess no one is being deceived when Yated posts a picture of a man and the caption reads "Mr. and Mrs." but you have to admit it's pretty strange and not something a papers like the WSJ or NYT (or even the Post) would ever do.
I've posted about the Invisible woman phenomenon. I don't like the fact that women have to be erased from view lest some man may find even a fully modestly-clad woman in some way "provocative." Such thinking leads to the extremes of women thinking their hands may be too "feminine" looking and so must be covered in front of male eyes. If it is not halachically defined ervah, it should not be too overwhelming a sight for a normal man. As for men beyond the pale, that would require blocking out all pictures of anything at all that might fit someone's odd inclination.
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