Hillary Clinton Jewish Newspapers Controversy: Ultra-Orthodox Publications May Not Use Her Photo Even If She Wins Presidency

Even if Hillary Clinton is elected president, her photo may not appear in every newspaper in the country. Some ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers don’t run pictures of women, in line with some religious views that doing so is "immodest," the New York Post reported.

“Purity and modesty are natural to women, not public exposure,” Ruth Lichtenstein, publisher of the English-language edition of the Israeli newspaper Hamodia, told the Columbia Journalism Review. “It is unfortunate that modern times deny women this precious quality and instead turn them into objects.”

Ultra-Orthodox papers have found ways to run stories of Clinton without running her photo in the past. Some of these publications may run photos of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, or even pictures of her home or campaign photos as a substitute.

Editors of some ultra-Orthodox papers have discussed their policy to not have women pictured in their pages because of Clinton’s campaign. No final decision can be made, however, until the boards of rabbinical advisers have their say.

“I think we’re going to have to rethink it,” Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter, executive editor of Ami magazine, told the Columbia Journalism Review.

While these newspapers won’t run photos of women, many are run by women, like Lichtenstein, daughter of Hamodia's founder. These papers invest more in their print editions than their online editions, some of which have homepages that are only updated once a day.

Some ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers have gotten into hot water in the past for doctoring photos with women in them. HaMevaser appeared to edit female world leaders out of a photo of the huge march in Paris in January honoring victims of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, according to the Huffington Post. The photo appeared to have deleted German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

Clinton has been filtered out of photos in ultra-Orthodox Jewish papers before. A New York-based newspaper removed her from the famous photo of President Barack Obama and his advisers during the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, the Telegraph reported.