Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Hillary Clinton Complains in Email of ‘Unbelievable’ Airbrushing From Orthodox Papers

Hillary Clinton complains in a newly released email about being airbrushed out of photographs by ultra-Orthodox newspapers.

The email with the subject line “unbeleivable” was bared as the State Department released another 5,000 pages of emails of the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate.

The emails released on Thursday afternoon are part of a trove of messages that Clinton sent and received on a personal e-mail account while serving in the high governmental position. The State Department also announced Thursday that 275 of the emails were upgraded to classified, bringing to 1,274 the number of emails that were newly classified. More emails are scheduled to be released this month.

In one of the emails released on Thursday, from May 2011, Clinton complains about being airbrushed from an official White House photo, for use in a New York-based Yiddish language Hasidic newspaper, the VosIzNeias news website reported. Some Hasdic and haredi Orthodox newspapers have a policy of not publishing photos of women, citing modesty concerns.

In an email with the subject line “Unbelievable” Clinton wrote: “The Jerusalem Post reported today that a NY Hasidic paper Der Zeitung published the sit room photo w/o me (or Audrey T) photoshopped out perhaps because no woman should be in such a place of power or that I am dressed immodestly!!”

The newspaper later apologized to the White House and the State Department for altering the photo. The White House photos are provided with the stipulation that they not be altered.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.