Published: 19 May 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
An outlet of a major pharmacy chain has succumbed to pressure from local rabbis in the Haredi suburb of Bnei Barak.
An Israeli pharmacy chain has caused an uproar by placing stickers on women's photos on its products in a largely ultra-Orthodox Tel Aviv suburb.
Sources told TheMarker, the business newspaper in Haaretz's Hebrew edition, that the job was done by a paid “kashrut supervisor.” Kashrut normally refers to adherence to Jewish dietary laws.
Executives at the chain, Be, said the move was the result of pressure at one store by local rabbis, who threatened to call a boycott on the branch in the town of Bnei Brak.
The move marks the latest effort by some segments of the ultra-Orthodox community to cover images of women's faces in a bid to decrease contact between the sexes.
The executives said they were frustrated by the demand but had to comply. “Do you want us not to open stores in ultra-Orthodox cities?” one executive asked. “Or should we resist the residents’ demands and have them protesting in front of our stores all day?”
The women's group Bonot Alternativa has launched an online campaign against the pharmacy's actions.
“When we started with 'The Handmaid’s Tale' performances, we never imagined that women would be hidden in the public sphere so soon and so blatantly. Our warnings are already becoming a reality,” said Moran Zer Katzenstein, who founded Bonot Alternativa.
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Can you tell what's wrong with this photo, taken at an Israeli pharmacy chain? (Haaretz)



