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Mirrors of Our Own
Preconceptions
Rabbi Avi Shafran

Mirrors of Our Own Preconceptions
Rabbi Avi Shafran

One wouldn't expect an Orthodox Jew to have had any interest beyond that of most folks in the denouement of the Elian Gonzalez saga, but this one did. It was the photographs.

Whether you were outraged or heartened by the Miami relatives' decisive inaction, or by U.S. Attorney General Reno's decisive action, one thing is likely true: your feelings found powerful expression in one of the pictures released on the day Elian was seized.

It may have been the one showing a terrified child confronted by what must surely have seemed a ferocious masked monster with a huge weapon in hand. Or one of the others, taken several hours later, depicting a motherless little boy beaming in happy security at his father's side.

One of the images was eagerly embraced by a group of people, and one equally eagerly denigrated by each.

For those who saw the Miami relatives as outlaws using a child as a pawn in a political battle, the photo of the frightened boy was dreadfully misleading. Elian was understandably distressed to be abducted by strangers, but it had been the stubborness of his Miami kin that had necessitated the raid; and the photographer had likely been carefully placed to exploit the deceptive moment. And for those who considered Elian's future in Cuba as bleak and thus his return to his father as unconscionable, the happy reunion photos were, at best, posed; at worst, deviously doctored.

Both photographs, though, of course, are likely entirely real. Each captures a poignant moment in a sad saga. And each inflames emotions. Which is why I gazed sadly, knowingly, at the contradictory depictions.

Misleading photographs are part of my life as the public affairs director of a major national Orthodox Jewish organization. Every summer - I hope this one will prove an exception - my community is maligned by widely-publicized photographs no less emotionally wrenching, at least for Jews, than those of Elian. They are taken at Jerusalem's Western Wall, usually at the festival of Shevuot, which celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, or on Tisha B'Av, the Jewish day of mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temple (of whose second incarnation's courtyard the Wall is a remnant).

The perennial photographs show Orthodox Jews angrily accosting non-Orthodox American Jews. The accompanying stories explain that the latter were simply and innocently praying according to their custom - men and women together - at the holy site, and that they had, as a result, come under angry attack by local religious zealots.

The photos are captivating, but, like those of Elian, show only one aspect - and, as it happens, a misleading and limited one - of a much larger and more complex issue. They do not, first and foremost, depict the tens of thousands of other Orthodox Jews - the norm at the holy site during those special days - who entirely ignore the untraditional visitors. An image of religious Jews in deep prayer is not as compelling (or likely to win a prize) as one of a band of hotheads showing their teeth.

And what no photograph could likely show, and is usually left unexplained in any accompanying text, is that the Western Wall is a place where all Jews - and non-Jews - are welcomed by the Orthodox Jews who are the holy site's main frequenters, and that the Wall is, at least in the absence of provocative acts, a place of profound peace and prayer. Since its capture in 1967, however, separate areas for men and women's prayer have been designated, out of respect for both the Jewish religious tradition at all Jews's roots, and the overwhelming majority of those Jews who regularly gather there. And no photograph, of course, shows the photographers themselves being alerted by the American visitors to the "photo op" they intend to stage.

No photograph, for that matter, could capture slips of the tongue like that of an organizer of a mixed-gender prayer service at the Wall who, as reported in a major American Jewish weekly, called his gathering a "rally" before catching himself - or a non-Orthodox rabbi's confession to an Israeli journalist that "We can only raise money by bashing the Orthodox."

And no photograph can convey sentiments like that of a respected and decidedly non-Orthodox writer like Hillel Halkin, who asked "Are there no other places to practice Jewish feminism in the world, in Israel or even in Jerusalem that they must do it at the one site where it most infuriates large numbers of other Jews?"

And while one could imagine a photograph of one of the many signs posted by Israeli Orthodox religious authorities unequivocally forbidding untoward behavior toward provocateurs at the Wall, they would have to be translated from Yiddish or Hebrew; in any event, they never appear. The only images American readers and viewers see are those showing Orthodox anger and innocent non-Orthodox victims.

And so for me, the photographs of Elian brought - after a sharp pang of grief for the crying boy and a rush of relief for the happy one - a knowing, painful feeling. I'd been here before, along with countless readers, skimmers and surfers of the media. We'd all been manipulated before by the power of a picture, by mirrors of our own preconceptions.

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From The Forward, courtesy of AM ECHAD RESOURCES.

Rabbi Avi Shafran serves as Agudath Israel of America's director of public affairs and as Am Echad's American director

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