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Does it make sense to override history? Wassn’t there a big rabbi back in the day whose wife didn’t cover her hair and it wasn’t such a big deal back then?
About photoshopping Bais Yakov girls from the 40’s to fit their tznius standards today:
If the pictures are assur, photoshopping it, which involves looking at it a lot, is wrong.
Apparently, we’re more Frum than the legendary Alter Heim.
Pictures of women?! Oh the horror!
This thread, I predict, will not get too long, as it touches on a subject that many frum people cannot understand or accept, i.e., the changing nature of the eternal truth of the Torah. I suspect that there are Chareidim who read Bamidbar and see black hats on the heads of the Jews under the cloud of Hashem. I suspect that there are middle-aged Chareidim who wonder why the black hats in their wedding albums are so small.
Let me emphasize: The truth of the Torah is eternal, but the wisdom of the some of the Torah’s interpreters is more problematic.
lightbrite- it’s not about today’s standards. The Halacha always was that a married lady’s hair must be covered, knees must be covered and sleeves must be uptil or covering the elbows. This is how Jewish women dressed for thousands of years. Actually, throughout most of Jewish history, they were far more tznius than they are today.
It is only recently that the tznius standards have fallen. I am referring to 1940 as recent. In light of thousands of years of Jewish history, that is recent. Remember, the Bais Yaakov movement was started precisely because the Jewish girls were starting to go off the Derech. The Bais Yaakov movement, when it first started, was almost like a kiruv movement. The girls were not necessarily that strong religiously when they first came.
I suspect that there are Chareidim who read Bamidbar and see black hats on the heads of the Jews under the cloud of Hashem.
I’ve mentioned in the CW before that a friend of mine has close family living in Kiryat Sefer. My friend’s nephews (from Kiryat Sefer) once brought home coloring pictures of the Maccabi’im fighting the Greeks. The Maccabi’im were shown wearing suits and black hats.
When my kids were in elementary school, they got cartoon explanations of the parasha. The stick-figure avos wore black hats.
Q: How do we know that Avraham avinu wore a Borsalino?
A: Avraham was born in 1948 and Borsalino was founded in 1857.
This kind of photoshopping is a Pandora’s box. If revising the truth is OK in some circumstances, then it is OK in others. It is a slippery slope. Better not to publish a picture than to falsify it.
And its sloppy as well as slippery.
I once listened as one of the senior editors of a publishing company that puts out biographies (hagiographies) “history” and other writings about our past for the frum community (and which has been doing so quite successfully for decades) made three prima facie historical and geographical errors in a speech that was 7 minutes long, that anyone with basic knowledge of the time and place would know were impossible as described.
If “our” writers and publishers are going to assert a level of professionalism, they should maintain professional standards and the first of those is truth.
RebYidd23 —-how do you know that women didn’t photoshop it?
LU
Bais Yaakov was started becauae in the 19th Century governments passed laws forcing mandatory schooling for everyone since there was yeshivas for boys , the boys went there, but there was nothing comparable for girls so they went to public school, There was a need for a school for religious girls like there was for religious boys
I agree about the distortion piece but I am not sure how i feel about this case. in an album that just came out about Telz Chicago there are tons of pictures of people in all types of clothes and head coverings. If the picture is of women, you can’t leave it with skin showing (I am actually in the process of coloring in textbooks so this was on my mind)
as an aside, Leslie ginsparg is from Chicago!
The reason IMO that its wrong is because if someone finds out that you photoshopped and changed history, they will begin to question other things you told them. Once someone is exposed as a liar, it can be hard to prove to people you are telling the truth
zdad – i totally agree with that concept, i just dont know any other way to show a not tznius photograph.
Syag- instead of photoshopping- which is meant to lead you to believe that that’s how the original one was- you can use “stickers” to cover whatever should be covered.
I do that for the textbooks but how would you do that for an article?
Agreeing here with Zdad-
You’re caught photoshopping, now everything you say is suspect. Frum publications, authors, lecturers have to be extra careful to avoid any semblance of sheker, or they lose more than they’ve gained in trying to transmit Torah’dig hashkafa and information.
Syag- if the only photo you have shows something that is not modest then simply don’t use the photo. If there’s some reason you must use it, then cover what you have to in a way that makes it obvious you’re covering something. Don’t artfully, and dishonestly, change a short sleeve to a long sleeve.
I was also surprised to hear to hear huju and others mentioning tzaddikim wearing black hats. Clearly this is not correct. According to the artwork I’ve seen coming from some of the top Yeshivos of today (not Chassidish ones I might add) the Tzaddikim and Manhigim among Yotz’ei Mitzrayim wore shtreimlach. The eirev rav wore Borsalinos.
(No I am not kidding. Saw it with my own eyes. Colored exquisitely by some of my favorite budding artists…)
golfer – that is 5% funny and 100% awful! I also received papers with the Tzaddikim wearing streimels but to put the eirev rav in hats is heartbreaking. I hope it was a really bad joke. Do we really need to hate each other that much? Maybe if there were talk bubbles you would have seen that they wore streimels but spoke lashon hakodesh? 😉
I think that maybe nobody (myself included) wants to acknowledge that the Yotz’ei Mitzrayim might have been in long hair with piercings.
Should have not included the picture, but how can a “frum” company distribute pictures of women that are not Tznius?
Like I saw commented elsewhere, this is a Pashut Tiufta (fatal flaw) in the Kuzari argument for Har Sinai.
To answer the OP, in my opinion,
Yes, it was wrong. There was a period of time when tznius fell to the sidelines. For whatever reason, and there were plenty of them.. a lot of women and girls then were much more frum and God fearing than our generation, we are not to judge them. I think it’s only proper to photoshop, asside for tznius concerns, because many of them would be ashamed of their attire – looking back. I know of one (relative of mine) who begged to have her picture altered because a bit was too revealing.. Again, it was a trend in those days.. we cannot judge, and they wouldn’t want to “be caught”. So they photoshop.
I think I agree with the reason for photoshopping, but in the spirit of emes, I wouldn’t have put it in.
SY
I dont get your opinion, You said you agreed that it is wrong to change the truth, but you agreed with the reason for photoshopping.
If you want to say , not to put the photo in, I dont have a problem with that position, I have a serious problem with changing history . There is never a good reason to change history
zahavasdad +1
Changing history undermines the entire edifice of Torah Judaism.
Because I don’t think we should alter “history”. I think it is sheker and can have the negative fall out you mentioned. But when it comes to covering skin on a woman, i just dont see that as altering history, i see that is being consistent with Torah laws. Just because they wore clothing that did not conform to halcha, that does not mean we are free to view it. Now if they changed t shirts to clooar shirts to make a political statement, that would be something else. So – in my opinion – history should not be altered, but women’s clothing needs to cover their skin l’halacha. so find a different picture, or use it in a context where it really is irrelevent.
LF:” +1
I think it’s important to add that there are many aspects to tznius, and while we may be better than they were in certain aspects of tznius, it seems to me that we may have a lot to learn from them in other aspects.
There are the technical halachos of covering knees, etc. but there is the other aspect of making sure the style is a tzniusdik style. That is also part of hilchos tznius, even though the Shulchan Aruch can’t possibly dileniate every possible style that might be invented.
My impression is that they excelled in the second aspect of tznius.
Of course, both are important and we should strive to dress tzniusly in both ways.
For all the cynics out there re: the black hat issue:
I think it’s a common thing that everyone does. When they want to portray people from a previous generation, they automatically portray them according to contemporary ways (partly because they don’t really know how people dressed and/or acted and/or thought). It’s a natural thing to do, and people do it in all circles.
I don’t think that anyone was trying to make a point about black hats – I think it was an automatic thing. They don’t know how people dressed then, and this is how we dress, so that’s why they did it that way. If it was a stick figure, they obviously weren’t trying to be accurate. Avraham Avinu was not a stick figure.
Also, if you are not sure how Avraham Avinu really did dress (which I would imagine, few people are), I could hear that it may make more sense to just dress him like today, than to make something up.
It’s not only done in terms of dress. It is also done in terms of how people thought,etc.
I once saw a movie based on a book by a not-Frum Jew about a girl who lived in a shtetl in Europe. It was clear that the people making the movie were “rewriting” history (albeit it, unintentionally) as though Frum people in pre-War Europe thought the same as they (secularists in 20th century America).
YY: “Pictures of women?! Oh the horror!”
Until recently, it was acceptable to show pictures of women. I think the reason for that actually was davka because the tznius standards used to be higher, so it wasn’t a problem.
At least in terms of the ways in which their tznius was sometimes lacking, we can photoshop. The things that are issues today probably couldn’t be photoshopped.
re: the photoshopping issue. I agree with those who say the intent is to not have untzniusdik pictures around and not to rewrite history.
I think the reason why sometimes people have a problem with this might be because they feel that it is important that people know that some people didn’t dress tzniusly (in certain ways) then, so that they can “prove” that tznius in not so important, and it’s a modern-day invention.
Otherwise, who cares? Why is it so important to know that some girls didn’t dress tzniusly in certain ways? It’s certainly less important than making sure that we are tznius and don’t look at these pictures.
And if you really think it’s that important, the books talk about it. You don’t need to see actual pictures. How do I know that women didn’t used to cover their hair? Because it’s written in a lot of books.
LB-like I said before, it’s only in recent history (1920 is recent history) that people started having these tznius issues. Tznius is not a modern invention – they used to dress and act MUCH MORE tzniusly than we do today.
If people from earlier years would see how things are done today, they would be horrified! I once heard someone point out that we see that even by Achashverosh and Vashti (who were not exactly models of tznius), the norm was that men and women dined COMPLETELY SEPARATELY! Forget about separate tables – they were in different places!
The idea that we are stricter about tznius today is a complete myth!
And it has already been explained several times why the photoshopping was done, so I don’t need to repeat.
“This applies to regular BT frum women today too.
What if your grandmother is a baal teshuvah and grew up secular…”
I think that there is a difference between having a relative photoshopped and a frum publication. I think a person is more willing to forgive a relative’s touch-up. OTOH a book which is trying to portray inspiring frum ideas will look hypocritical.
I think that they should either leave it out or inform the reader that the picture was touched up. No need to say what was touched-up.
The photos should not be touched up. Period. Touching up the photos is lying.
As many posters already pointed out, the pictures were photoshopped because it is a problem to have untzniusdik pictures lying around.
In terms of the supposed rewriting of history – hello, I don’t think it occurred to them in a million and one years that anyone would be analyzing the pictures like this!!
Like why in the world would it occur to someone that anyone would be measuring the hems and sleeves and necklines and comparing them to old versions of the pictures and analyzing why this was done and coming to the conclusion that someone was trying to rewrite history, etc?
They simply saw an untznius picture and decided to make it more tzniusdik, period. Just as SYAG does with her textbooks. If they had thought that anyone would read into it, of course they would have left it out. But that never occurred to them.
Personally, if I were in their situation, I probably would have done the same thing, without thinking twice about it.
When I used to color in pictures for my students, it never occurred to me that there was any sheker involved, because now they will think that Helen Keller wore long sleeves. I don’t care how long Helen Keller’s sleeves are – I would just prefer that my students not see pictures of short sleeves.
If the pictures were being used to teach hilchos tznius, you’d be right. But no one is using the pictures to teach hilchos tznius. We learn hilchos tznius from the Mishna Brurah, not from pictures.
So people have (possibly intentionally) tried to cover up the wrongdoings of the past – big deal. Sure beats running the risk of leaving the mistaken impression (particularly on impressionable young minds) that this is somehow a legitimate practice consistent with Halachic-observant Judaism just because some people have done it at some point in the past.
The mistakes of the past must be taught very carefully so as not either legitimize those mistakes, or belittle those who have made them. This is a delicate balance, and I don’t at all blame the publishers of a biography for trying to sidestep such a thorny issue.
mw13 – So your saying that its ok for us to misrepresent something and change it so it suits our needs? Isn’t that just another form of not telling the truth? (mitzva haba bavariah aino mitzva)
Lets admit our mistakes and learn from them. Otherwise the torah would say that everyone was perfect and thats how we should live… clearly it isn’t this way and the torah tells us the mistakes of our forefathers. Why are we more relligious then the torah and why do we try and cover up the mistakes of previous generations?
Utah – maybe it’s not what you would have done, but I don’t know if we should be criticizing the people who did it and speaking badly about them. It could be a LH problem.
In any case, I really don’t think that is what was happening there, and I see no reason to assume such a thing. The most likely possibility is the one that many posters have already given – that they didn’t want people to see untznius pictures.
Even if it weren’t the most likely possibility, but only one possibility, we have a chiyuv to be “dan l’kaf zchus” and assume the best. There is certainly no reason for us to davka assume the worst possible reason
LU
The Early reform said the same thing you did, They claimed they did thing “L’sham Shamaym” and early reform temples did not look much different than orthodox and the changes were minor.
We see what happend when the reform did certain things. One is not supposed to veer from the left or the right. Sheker is Sheker no matter who does it.
LU
If they didnt want people to see untznius pictures then they shouldnt have put those pictures in the book in the first place. Photoshopping them is misrepresenting and it is a form of not telling the truth.
I just dont see how you can rationialize this and say that one should be dan lekaf zechus. They may have had good intentions but i still feel that what they did was wrong.
Utah, first of all, even if you think it’s wrong, it is loshon hora to say so. According to halacha, it is loshon hora to say something negative about a book, since you are criticizing the author.
Second of all, my point of being “dan l’kaf zchus” was regarding the reason they did this. Two possible reasons have been given for their doing this. One is that they didn’t want people to see untznius pictures, and the other is that they were trying to rewrite history. We are not allowed to assume the second reason when we can be assuming the first. (Aside from the fact that I think it’s the more likely possibility.)
Now you are bringing in another point – that even if we assume they were doing it for the right reasons, in the end it is misrepresenting things and sheker and therefore wrong and they shouldn’t have included the pictures.
In terms of that, I understand your point, but: 1. We still have the LH issue & 2) we still have the “dan l’kaf zchus” issue &
3. I think there is an obvious answer here. It clearly never occurred to them that anyone would look at it that way, or they just would have left the pictures out.
After all, there is no reason the pictures have to be included, so if they had a “hava amina” that there was anything wrong with it, they would have left it out.
I am sure it never occurred to them that anyone thought they were trying to misrepresent history. I would never have thought of such a thing, so why should they?
I still don’t see why anyone would even come up with such an idea. It is a very farfetched idea. The only reason why anyone would think of such a thing is if they are starting off with the assumption that someone might be trying to rewrite history.
I always take off my glasses for pictures. Is that sheker? According to your theory, it would be. I only take off my glasses for pictures because I look better that way and I want to look my best for a picture.
You could argue that taking off my glasses is not sheker because my glasses are not attached to me and I really can take them off. The same is true here – I am sure that everyone in the picture did sometimes have their knees and elbows covered.
If anyone from today could go back in time and take their picture now, they would ask them to make sure their knees and elbows are covered for the photo. Is that sheker? I can’t imagine anyone would think so.They didn’t have that option so instead they covered up their knees and elbows. There is nothing wrong with that.
Every school does the same thing when they take class pictures – they make sure the girls are tznius even if they normally aren’t. And if they realize after the picture that the neckline was too low for example, I think they fix it by coloring it in. Not because they are trying to lie and to say the girls are always tznius, but simply because they don’t want people to see untznius pictures. And there is nothing sheker about it – the girl’s neckline is not an inherent part of her – she could have been wearing a higher neckline.
According to your logic, it would be assur for someone to wear coverup because it is sheker. They are making it look like they don’t have pimples when they really do. And it would also be assur for me to take off my glasses for pictures, since I never walk around without glasses because I wouldn’t be able to see.
“Lashon hara, if I am not mistaken, does not apply if the discussion is intended to understand meaning or for the greater good.”
That is unfortunately a very widespread mistaken belief about LH. In order for LH to be okay there are many conditions and just saying that it is for the greater good does not make it okay.
By the way, my comments about LH were not meant for you. I didn’t think there was necessarily anything wrong with your asking the question since my understanding was that you were just trying to understand why they did this.
However, I did feel that the way that some posters posted was inappropriate and problematic. (If there was any problem with your asking the question, it is only because there will always be people who answer inappropriately. That is why this is probably not the best place to ask such questions given a choice, and asking a live Rabbi or Rebbetzin is always better. However, it’s possible that you have no one else to ask these questions to)
Regarding “taking off glasses being normal and accepted”. I don’t know if that is so or not, but personally, I am the only person I know who does it. I think most people do not do this, since most people who would care enough about it wear lenses.
According to the logic being used here with photoshopping, it definitely would be considered deceptive for me to take off my glasses – more so than with the photoshopping, since I never wear lenses and never take off my glasses.
What makes it okay is the fact that there IS NO deception taking place, since I would not hide the fact that I wear glasses from anyone. If anyone were to ask, I would tell them. I would tell someone before I married them if it were necessary (which it’s not because they will know the first time I meet them anyhow).
Here too, there IS NO deception taking place. If anyone wanted to know, they would tell right away that the pictures were photoshopped and explain the reason.
No one is denying the fact that in certain ways they dressed untzniusly in those days (although, they were much more tznius than we are today!).That is not why the pictures were photoshopped and it didn’t occur to them that anyone would look at it that way.
I don’t know how you could know that
Regarding Hilchos L”H, even if you think it’s okay because it’s for the greater good, one of the first conditions is that you have to discuss it with the person first. Before throwing out this issue to the whole world online, you should be writing to the editors of the book, and ASKING them why they did it.
Second of all, you have to be sure of your information; you have to know for a fact that it is true. You have to consider if it is possible that there can be another explanation. You are assuming that they did this in order to be deceptive and that in fact, according to halacha it is considered deception and is assur. Do you know 100% for sure that that is their intention? Do you know for sure that it is assur according to halacha? If not, it is assur to say so.
Third of all, what is the greater good here? Is it always for the greater good to talk about what others did wrong? If so, then there would be no concept of LH, since everything would always be okay.
If the whole thing really bothers you so much, why don’t you write to them and ask them why they did it?
And if you think it’s a problem, discuss it with them and not with the rest of the world.
“Now what if someone says the same about deceiving photographs? Is this a white lie for the greater good? Who is to judge because that’s potential and it could also be the opposite.”
There were no deceiving photographs here. A deceiving photograph is only if you are using the photograph to make an incorrect point. The photographs were not being used to show how the girls dressed in those days – they were being used to show the girls learning.
If you photoshop a picture to make it clearer or brighter, is that a problem? of course not. You are just trying to make the picture look better. Here that is not even the point.
Regarding, “who is to judge about what you are allowed to do for the greater good?”
The halacha decides when you are allowed to. It is not something you can decide for yourself. According to halacha, you are not allowed to speak Loshon Hora just because it is for the greater good.On the other hand, according to halacha, you are allowed to lie in order to avoid speaking Loshon hora.
At the place where I just spent Shabbos, the host was teaching hilchos LH, and he “happened” to mention that according to halacha, pictures that show something bad about a person can be LH. So that may be another reason why they photoshopped the pictures (as someone already mentioned). Some of these people may still be alive so it may be embarrassing to them, and that is certainly a reason why it be a CHIYUV to photoshop the pictures. You are OBLIGATED to lie in order to not embarrass others. (although I personally don’t think there was any deception going on here, but even if s.o. does, acc. to halacha, they probably had no choice).
“I don’t know how you could know that”
Because there is no reason to assume otherwise.
You claimed you didn’t think of it so they probably didn’t either. Now you say that didn’t think of it. I think it’s fair to assume there are many in the world their own thoughts independent of whether or not you share them.
“I don’t know how you could know that”
“Because there is no reason to assume otherwise.”
“You claimed you didn’t think of it so they probably didn’t either. Now you say that didn’t think of it. I think it’s fair to assume there are many in the world their own thoughts independent of whether or not you share them.”
As I already pointed out, according to halacha,if there is more than one possibility, we have a chiyuv to assume the best, and we are not allowed to think that the other (negative) possibility can possibly be true.
Lightbrite – you definitely get the #1 prize in the CR for being able to retract things!
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