Jerusalem – Charedi women who chose to go to separate swimming beaches in Tel Aviv and Herzliya became targets of treacherous AP photographers who decided – under the guise of “art” – to violate their modesty and privacy by capturing the women on film without their knowledge and against their will.
Two of the news agency’s photographers, Ariel Shalit and Tara Todras-Whitehill, were hired to shoot “The Summer of the Haredi Sector in Israel,’ a project that includes hundreds of photographs and video clips showing chareidi women at separate beaches.
Today Yedioth Ahronoth made matters worse by printing a series of photos from the project, showing chareidi women in bathing suits at Herzliya’s separate-swimming beach.
The Hebrew-language daily did at least blur the women’s faces, but an organization called the Committee for the Purity of the Camp says it may sue Yedioth Ahronoth and plans to post monitors to keep lurking photographers away from the beaches.
“It is wholly unacceptable that when we send our family members to a place declared gender segregated and glatt kosher, in practice breaches of this sort are taking place,” a Committee member told Kikar HaShabbat. “It’s simply shocking that chareidi women, who take pains to uphold their modesty, are exposed to deluded longings of photographers and reporters who have been totally corrupted by western culture.
“Who gives them the right to photograph women against their will and to publish the photographs openly under the guise of art?” he demanded
VIN News edited out the faces.