Jerusalem – Mishpacha magazine’s cover photograph showing a shadowed silhouette of Hillary Clinton’s face has drawn criticism from an Israeli newspaper for lowering the standards of Charedi journalism.

An editorial which appeared in the Israeli edition of Hamodia pulled no punches in its criticism, reported Arutz Sheva.

“True Charedi newspapers would never publish pictures of women at all, even those who have reached high ranking office,” read the editorial. “These are the directives by which we live our lives and the precautions that surround us and they do not change in the realm of politics.”

The Hamodia editorial said that the secular world understands that Charedi publications subscribe to a high standard of modesty that precludes the inclusion of photographs of women and that they realize that a lack of photo coverage does not indicate a lack of support for a particular individual but is part of the way that G-d fearing Jews conduct their lives.

The cover of the November 2nd issue of Mishpacha showed similar images of both candidates on opposite sides of the page, divided by the headline “Down to the Wire.” Both the picture of Donald Trump and that of Hillary Clinton were overlaid with images of campaign posters that somewhat obscured their faces.

A response from Mishpacha said that halachic authorities were consulted before the cover design was finalized.

“Every decision is made after speaking with the spiritual committee of communal rabbis in America and that is why we decided to publish the picture in the fashion we did.”

