I was disappointed by the lack of the humorous Purim “satire” articles in the Purim edition of The Link, but the letter to the editor in last week’s issue regarding women’s pictures will have to suffice (“Stop Erasing Women: A Call for Equal Representation in Jewish Link Ads”). In fact, I am unsure if those who signed that letter and I have been reading from the same Jewish Link. On the page where that letter was printed alone there were two advertisements: both featuring only women. The vast majority of ads contain photos of people representing both genders. The sports pages last week featured three local school teams, and two of them were all girls!
Oftentimes, upon traveling to other observant communities, I have taken a copy of their local “frum” paper. If you want to complain about a paper lacking pictures of women, there are numerous other publications where women are just short of erased; in fact, the one I saw most recently had a letter to the editor complaining about complete lack of coverage on the female hostages! And still, you would criticize The Jewish Link? The paper that not only publishes photos and advertisements containing women, but encourages and celebrates them? The paper that shows photos of girls of all ages, from all religious sects, and publishes their projects, thoughts, ideas and opinions, and has articles about women’s events and topics on women’s health that other frum publications wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole? In this community, where women are encouraged to aim just as high as men, where women go from wonderful high schools like Ma’ayanot and Naaleh to all types of colleges, and are encouraged to pursue all manners of education? Where women run organizations, women learn together, women are honored at events and their names are shared with no relation to their husbands?
Never, in the past 20 years I have spent as a woman living in Teaneck, have I felt like I could not be seen in public, or that I was “weak and unable to control myself.” I have never felt anything less than valuable, important, heard and seen. And indeed, it may be true that The Jewish Link accepts advertisements from organizations that are more stringent about publishing women in their ads: Then so be it! Surely, they also do wonderful work, and if you refuse to accept that they hold to different standards than you do, simply do not engage with their business! To go through the paper and count the ads like that, which I believe you concluded was two, is an utterly foolish waste of time. Go live in a community where women are discouraged from driving, where they have to hire taxis to take them to the grocery store so they can shop for their families, where they are not encouraged to get a proper education or job. I don’t believe that after a visit to these places you would complain about the lack of women in our paper. There are genuine issues within the community that could have taken up space on that page, but women’s representation in The Jewish Link? Really? In my humble opinion, it is for nitpicking of this manner that Moshiach refuses to come down for a visit. This is a non-issue.
