‘Anti-feminist’ vandals deface images of women
JERUSALEM — The joyful glint in Peggy Parnass’ eyes is so sharp it can be seen from the walls of Jerusalem’s bustling Old City. Posted across the street at the gateway to City Hall, twin images of the Holocaust survivor and activist gaze out at the ancient warren of holy monuments of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
But just outside this center of spirituality, someone saw her image as a problem. Five times since the photos of Parnass were posted as part of an exhibition that began in April, vandals — widely believed to be ultra-Orthodox extremists — spray-painted over her eyes and mouth.
The graffiti was cleaned each time, leaving Parnass smiling again. For many Israelis, however, the short-term fix highlighted a familiar pattern that’s all the more painful because the destruction is coming not from enemies across Israel’s borders but from within.
“It’s not anti-Semitic,” said Jim Hollander, the curator of The Lonka Project art installation at Safra Square. “This is anti-feminist.”
For all of its modernity and high-tech know-how, Israel has for decades been unable to keep images of women from being defaced in public spaces. Billboards showing women — including soccer players, musicians and young girls — have been repeatedly defaced and torn down by religious extremists in Jerusalem and other cities with large ultra-Orthodox populations. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel was erased from a 2015 photo of world leaders in Paris published by an ultra-Orthodox newspaper.
The pattern is especially uncomfortable now.
“This is not Kabul, this is Jerusalem,” said Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, a Jerusalem deputy mayor. “This is a concerted campaign by radicals to erase women from the public space.”
The double photo of 94-year-old Parnass, who lives in Germany, is posted on an outside wall of Jerusalem’s City Hall complex.
Hollander said he specifically chose it among dozens of others posted around the complex to hang in the marquee spot because it projects vitality, perseverance and survival and its central location makes it visible to thousands every day.
The vandalism is widely blamed on a small number of fringe members of the insular ultra-Orthodox community, which emphasizes modesty among women and has traditionally carried outsized influence in Israeli politics. The photo is posted next to a street that borders an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up about 12.6% of Israel’s population of 9.3 million. That community’s population is growing faster than those of other Israeli Jews and Arabs, according to the
Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan Jerusalem think tank. A majority of Jerusalem’s Jewish community is ultra-Orthodox, the institute said.
There is a difference, one expert cautioned, between the more pragmatic mainstream ultra-Orthodox Judaism and the vandals defacing photos of women.
“In the mainstream, they know that the world outside is functioning in a different way,” said Gilad Malach, who leads the ultra-Orthodox program at the Israel Democracy Institute. “And they know that in some situations, they need to cooperate with that.”
In the mainstream Orthodox community, some women have begun to push back on social media.
“The men aren’t in charge there,” said Kerry Bar-Cohn, 48, an Orthodox chiropractor and performer whorecently tried to publish an ad in a local circular with her photo, but was refused.
“It’s straight-out discrimination,” said Bar-Cohn, wife of a rabbi and a mother of four. “I was thinking I want to sue them, but No. 1, who has the time? And No. 2, you don’t want to be that person.”