She’s Running for New York City Council. But Newspapers Won’t Publish Her Photo. - POLITICO
More and more religious Jewish newspapers and magazines are banning images of women from their pages. Where does that leave the Orthodox women who want to get into politics?
Amber Adler, a 37-year-old single mother and the first Orthodox woman to run for city council in her Brooklyn district. | Mamadi Doumbouya for Politico Magazine
In all but one way, Amber Adler is running a pretty normal campaign for New York city council. She knocks on doors and attends rallies; she campaigns outside of grocery stores and subway stations; she puts posters up across her district and places ads in local newspapers.
But look for a picture of her face in one of those local papers, and you’re not likely to find one. Why not? Because most of the magazines and newspapers in her neighborhood refuse to publish her photo.
Adler, 37, is the first Orthodox Jewish woman to run for city council in her Brooklyn district, which includes ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods scattered throughout Borough Park and Midwood. And as she heads toward her June 22 primary, she’s a victim of a fairly recent trend among Jewish media outlets in Orthodox neighborhoods in the United States: a refusal to publish photographs of women and girls for religious reasons. Which means if Adler wants campaign ads printed in the Jewish news, she can’t be in most of them.
