Observant Jews are voicing concerns over modesty and looking for compromise on the Transportation Security Administration’s plan to expand the use of whole-body imaging machines for airport security, after last month’s failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound jetliner.
Leaders in both Conservative and Orthodox communities are debating how scanners with the ability to see through clothing intersect with Jewish laws of tzniut, or modesty, which are observed differently among denominations but generally require Jews to cover their bodies.
“It creates a tension between the Jewish value of protecting lives, which is very strong, and the Jewish value of modesty for women and for men,” said David Rosenn, a Conservative rabbi and the executive director of Avodah, a Jewish service program.
The full-body scanners actually come in two varieties, each using a different type of technology. Millimeter wave scanners use radio frequency beams to create a 3-D image of the body. Backscatter X-rays use small amounts of radiation to create 2-D images of each side of the body. Both result in sketchy digital representations of the naked body of the person being scanned, allowing screeners to see items concealed under clothing.
There are currently 74 full-body scanning machines in operation at American airports. The TSA, which oversees airport security throughout the country, recently announced that 150 more backscatter X-rays will be put to use early this year.
According to the TSA’s Web site, images from the backscatter X-rays are processed through an algorithm meant to protect the privacy of the passenger. The images are viewed by TSA officers who sit at terminals behind closed doors and have no personal interaction with the people being scanned. “They’re just spending 10 seconds or so looking at the image to make sure there aren’t any concealed threat items,” said Ann Davis, a spokeswoman for the TSA. “Then the image gets deleted.”
Davis said that the officers reviewing the scan would not necessarily be the same gender as the individual being scanned.
Conservative and Orthodox rabbis have voiced concern over the scanners, and in some cases they’ve requested compromises to ensure that their modesty concerns are met. Last June, the Washington office of Agudath Israel, which represents traditional American Orthodox communities, sent a letter to a Senate subcommittee reviewing a TSA-related bill, promoting an amendment to the House version of the bill that limited the use of the full-body scanners to situations in which passengers had already failed a metal detector test, and which would require that those passengers be offered the option of a pat-down search.
“As an organization that represents observant Jews, Agudath Israel finds [full-body imaging] to be offensive, demeaning, and far short of acceptable norms of modesty under the laws and practices of Judaism and many faith communities,” the letter read.
Abba Cohen, the rabbi who directs Agudath Israel’s Washington office, said in an interview that it is important that the full-body scans be adopted with care, if they are adopted at all. “In the rush to move to full-body scans, there hasn’t been any kind of process of determining under what circumstances these scans could and should be used,” Cohen said.
Still, Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel, made it clear that his organization saw room for compromise. “Orthodox Jewish men and women go to doctors,” Shafran said. “Because it’s a professional environment, and that person is doing this because of his job, what would be a violation of modesty in one circumstance is not in a medical circumstance. That could be utilized here.”
Other rabbis emphasized the importance of the Jewish principle of pikuach nefesh, or the saving of human life. “We have a responsibility to make sure that we are protected and to guarantee our physical security, or else our capacity to serve as ambassadors of God in this world is impossible,” said Kenneth Brander, dean of Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future. “That being said… the same way that if someone can save oneself on the Sabbath without violating the Sabbath, one does so, if we can figure out ways so that [the full-body scanner] not only blocks out the face, but perhaps certain private parts are shaded in ways that do not compromise security but protect modesty, I think that’s something we should [support].”
The scanners have raised concerns outside the American Jewish community, as well. In early January, a group of European rabbis issued a press release voicing distress over the scanners. And in the United States, American Muslim groups have said that the scans may violate their religion’s standards of modesty. “The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said every faith has an intrinsic character, and the intrinsic character of Islam is modesty,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is a Washington-based civil rights and advocacy group. “We have specific requirements for what can be exposed of the body, both for men and women, and needless to say, having a nude image displayed on a screen is not something we appreciate in religious terms.”
Hooper said that it was important to his organization that the full-body scans remain one option. “I think in the Muslim community it’s one topic of discussion,” he said. “People are deciding what they are going to do. Am I going to cut down on my traveling? Am I going to grit my teeth and go through it? Am I going to object? And then if I object, what’s going to happen?”
According to Mary Boys, a professor at Union Theological Seminary, the body scanners don’t seem to have raised widespread concerns among Christians. “I don’t see that this is going to come up as a theological issue among a lot of Christian groups,” Boys said.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com
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Seems to me a little common sense should go a long way. Cant they just have men scanning men and women scanning women? End of story.
the solution is for them to cover their faces that way no one will know its there body
Last time I checked, life or death trumps surface modesty issues.
Talmud carries a definitional case of a chassid shoteh as someone who refuses to save a woman from drowning in a river for fear of modesty
A terrorist could easily pretend to be an observant Jew. There are ways to preserve anonimity. I do not want to be blown up because of my own religion.
Specifically, Sotah 21b, Frank. There the Talmud illustrates a "pious fool" ("chassid shoteh") as a man who sees a woman drowning in the river and refrains from saving her because it's forbidden to look at a woman! 21b).
The Rambam commented that he took his "piety" to foolish extremes.
Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld at Torah.org says: "R. Heshy Weinreb, a past Baltimore rabbi, once made the following excellent observation: "There's sometimes a very thin line between meticulous observance of every detail of the mitzvos and just plain being a neurotic." ...He can pay such painstaking attention to all the details he's liable to utterly forget what the Torah is all about."
And the Torah is VERY clear: "ve-chai ba-hem" - you shall live by the mitzvot, not die by them.
God, please save us from nudnik rabbis and nutsy haredim! This is my prayer, oh Lord.
Here in London the question of modesty arose spontaneously and we were told the person viewing the scan would be in an office far removed from the person being scanned. The issue of modesty is hardly limited to Jews. Another solution being consideed in Europe is that a computer examines the scan and only rings an alarm is anything unusual is found. No one would consider the security guard seeing each passenger's scan.
To Rona. There was a case a few years back when an early female suicide bomber asked advice from her Imam about adoptng Western dress to make it easier to reach her destination for denotating. The Imam told her it was permitted to dress like a Haredi married woman because this would fulfill all the Islamic requirements for modesty. Seems you're the second to think of it !
Interesting that I was a test case about 6 years ago as I flew halfway across the United States. At the time I was simply directed to the "closet" like thing after I had already passed through the metal detector, a baggage screening, and a wanding. When I stepped into the "closet," I immediately felt closed in not knowing what was happening. I was told to assume a position and, I kid you not, there was this big blast of air which literally billowed my below mid-calf dress. When the air came up my dress, the combination of lights and air caused my husband nearby to be able to clearly see my physical form at a distance...and I wear cloth through which one does not typically see through easily! My husband's comment was: "Boy, I sure hope that's not the new security system!" So unless the TSA folk have fixed that issue, I would prefer a female to female pat-down any time. I was extremely embarassed because, if my husband saw 10 seconds of immodest, I imagine a few others did as well. As for pekuach nefesh and the quotes from Talmud, I would lean toward that direction.
By the way, I never was told I was actually part of a study nor asked to be part of a study. I was just told what to do. Now, if I did that to someone in Healthcare....
Salam (peace)
I understand these modesty concerns and I'm for them. Hoewver, the problem can be solved easily by using the machines but males to be screened by male officers, while females to be screened by female ones.
Simple, anyone who has a religious objection to being scanned -- just doesn't fly. No problem, passenger choice.
But I would point out that neither the Talmud nor any other religious opinion of note deals with conditions that bring people into conditions that are electronically created ... at best, we can ask what the restriction is of a shadow on a tent wall -- is there such a restriction?
BUT if if there is (and someone please cite the specific language), who is at fault, the one in the tent or the one looking at them?
I actually cannot understand why more people aren't up in arms over this. People have a right to travel without being completely violated. I am not religious at all, and I don't want a woman seeing that image as much as I don't want a man to see it. Modesty laws or not, it is an explicit invasion of privacy in a very literal sense. People should not have to be subjected to strangers having access to the image underneath their clothes, even if for only a brief moment. It is violating.
From a Christian, or even Jewish standpoint, it seems pretty cut-and-dry to me: The Bible says, "Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet [thee as] a man." (Isaiah 47:2&3). If to 'uncover the thighs" is synonymous with "thy nakedness shall be uncovered", then this is clearly a violation of that. It's crazy what we are willing to give up, even to the point of our most intimate privacy, to feel 'safe", especially when they use, as a reason, an example of the lousy job TSA did in the first place, in enforcing its rules. What's next when thie fails? Body cavity searches so you can fly to Grandma's?
Next thing these idiot observant Jews will be saying is that it is against Jewish law for fireman to work on the Sabbath. It certainly is not against Jewish law to allow goyim to operate the machines - they cannot break Jewish law. see http://bit.ly/djKO6N .