Friday, July 15, 2005

The Back of the Prophetess' Head

The Jerusalem Post ran this review of a children's computer game about Deborah. It looks cute, but I don't know what to make of this:

"...this adventure, which stars Deborah, who appears only with her back to the player, apparently so as not to upset English-speaking haredi parents in the Diaspora and Israel with a female face."

I actually don't get this one. Is it really considered--what, immodest? for a female animation figure to have a face? But not a male one? What on earth is this about?

3 comments:

Shira Salamone said...

Yes, I think it *is* considered immodest. I don't think right-wing Orthodox publications ever publish photos of women.

BBJ said...

Ya know, I just got through looking at a whole bunch of Haggadah pictures from Catalonia in the Middle Ages. Miriam has a face, Tzipporah has a face, the midwives have faces, the ladies in fancy dress at the seder table have faces. If it was good enough for the Ramban's community...

Thanks for the heads-up. I sometimes really wonder where all this will end up.

Shira Salamone said...

Yeah, well, there's a tradition that Rashi's daughters wore tefillin, and we don't see much of *that* in the Orthodox community these days, either. Over time, there have been differences in interpretation.