While U.S. officials battled backlash for being a no-show at anti-terrorism rallies in Pairs on Sunday, one Orthodox Jewish newspaper fought hard to erase all the women who were actually there.
The Israel-based paper HaMevaser cropped out some of the world's most powerful women from a front page photo of 40 world leaders at the rally, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Prime Minister of Denmark, Helle Thorington-Schmidt, the New York Daily News noted.
"The paper didn't blur out Merkel's image or white it out, but completely re-edited the photograph and moved the images of the participants around so that you could never tell that Merkel was ever there," a reporter wrote for the Hebrew-language site Walla!, which first pointed out the altered picture.
HaMevaser, which means The Announcer, also erased European Union Foreign Affairs and Security Chief Federica Mogherini from the front line of the rally attended by millions to show support for the 12 people who lost their lives when self-proclaimed al-Qaeda gunmen stormed the Paris office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last week.
By publishing the all-macho front page photo, the newspaper is keeping in line with its traditional ultra-Orthodox policy not to publish images or names of women, according to Haaretz newspaper.
But critics said obliterating women who were there- including Paris' own Mayor Anne Hidalgo- is an offensive thing to do when the world is battling rampant religious extremism.
"If they don't want to see women, just blur or cover her face. Why make it seem like a woman was not even there?" Haaretz blogger Rabbi Eliyahu Fink wrote. "It's not about 'gawking at women' or sexual arousal. Rather, it is an attempt to excise women from the public sphere completely...They are telling their community that women have no place in society outside the home."
After Fink posted his comment on Facebook, others were quick to joke that perhaps HaMevaser should have photoshopped U.S. President Barack Obama into the picture.
