The beautiful thing about ultra-orthodox tyranny is that it always stretches ad absurdum to the point that it invalidates itself. In this case, I only had to wait a week for the absurdity to reveal itself.
I recently argued with Eric of The Israel Situation on the decision to censor a Meretz ad from public transportation, since the model on it was deemed “immodest”. While I continue to adamantly oppose any compulsion of religious criteria on the public sphere in Israel, Jerusalem has proven to go far beyond my dreams and nightmares in its demands for modesty.
Kadima was compelled to censor photos of its own chairperson, Tzipi Livni, on its ads in Jerusalem, so as not to offend so called “religious feelings”, which apparently cannot stand the sight of any female face. I pray for the souls of religious Jews all over the world that they will not be offended when seeing photos of Livni in the newspaper, nor be sexually aroused should any newspaper choose to publish immodest photos of Livni sharing a secret with George Bush.
I would expect that all photos of a candidate for premiership be modest, by all standards of common sense, a feature lacking in any ultra-orthodox stance. To be sure, Livni did not pose in swimwear as part of her campaign, and the censored photo did not even go below her chin.
I truly hope that the religious feelings of ultra-orthodox in Jerusalem are not offended when they return home to find out they are actually living with a woman, one with the same organs as Livni, with a face that cannot be cut off, as pictures are from posters.
[...] first issue is hardly new. Even my own marginal blog has mention of it from three years ago. The folly of gender-segregated buses is nearing a decade. The idea of segregated settlements based [...]
By: Separationists, Exclusionists, and Consensus-Seekers « Mostly on Israel on January 15, 2012
at 2:06 am