Haredi Transport Minister To Airbrush Women From Driver License Photos

Aides to the minister said existing licenses would not be recalled and reissued to conform to the guidelines, as such a ruling would be unduly disruptive and unfair to the public.

Jerusalem, April 30 – Incoming Minister of Transport Moshe Gafni instructed his aides today to begin preparing for a new ministry policy under which the photographs of women on their driver’s licenses would be required to have them airbrushed out of the picture, for modesty reasons.

Gafni, representing the Degel HaTorah faction of United Torah Judaism, was given the post of Transport Minister under the recently signed coalition agreement with Likud. The return of ultra-Orthodox parties to the government after an absence of two years marks a shift back to what is termed the religious “status quo” in Israel, in which no governmental or legislative measures are taken to alter the Orthodox monopoly on administration of religious affairs. Catering to his religiously conservative political base, Gafni now intends to implement a policy that reflects the growing trend in the Haredi community of eliminating images of women from the public eye.

Haredi newspapers regularly modify or crop portraits of public officials to remove women, whose depiction would be offensive or provocative to their readership as a violation of modesty sensibilities. The most prominent recent occurrence involved the gathering of world leaders in Paris last year after several terrorist attacks in the city. A Haredi newspaper removed images of German Chancellor Angela Merkel from images of the leaders marching together, provoking ridicule, disbelief, and outrage from various quarters.

The trend of keeping women’s pictures out of the public arena in Israel has gained ground in recent years. In certain neighborhoods of Jerusalem several years ago, buses carrying ads in which women appeared were regularly damaged or defaced, leading the local public bus operator to refuse any advertisements featuring women. After a court ordered a reversal of the policy, the company instituted a blanket ban on images of people in such ads, to avoid either upsetting the Haredim or falling afoul of antidiscrimination laws.

Once Gafni officially takes office in several weeks, pending the signing of the remaining coalition agreements, the Ministry of Transport will no longer issue licenses to women without having their images digitally altered to eliminate any pictures of women. Renewals will be subject to the same policy, but aides to the minister said existing licenses would not be recalled and reissued to conform to the guidelines, as such a ruling would be unduly disruptive and unfair to the public.

“Our primary concern remains the safety of drivers, and forcing millions of people not to drive until they obtain a license that meets the new guidelines would be a nightmare,” said spokesman Tali Bahn. “Also, it would be a form of coercion.”