Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Mayim Bialik Won’t Stay Silent On Orthodox Blurring Out Women’s Faces

If you think the fact that Mayim Bialik can’t speak for a month will keep her from publicly sharing her opinion, you obviously don’t know Mayim Bialik.

Despite strained vocal chords, Bialik took to Instagram to share her opinion about an Orthodox journal’s policy of blurring women’s faces out in ads.

Some super duper ultra orthodox Jews think women’s faces should be blotted out of ads and photos… @Jofaorg showed what I might look like under this absurd restriction. #Repost @jofaorg ・・・ This one goes out to one of our favorite people who knows #frumwomenhavefaces #mayimbialik #jofabulous #feminism #fightwithlaughter

A post shared by mayim bialik (@missmayim) on

Bialik’s comments come in response to an incident in which Adina Miles, aka “Flatbush Girl”, an Orthodox comedian and Instagram personality living in Flatbush, Brooklyn, was told by the Flatbush Jewish Journal that she would have to blur her face in an ad she was running in its magazine.

Miles responded to the journal’s policy with an Instagram post of her own.

Men & Women – spread the word: Share a post with #FrumWomenHaveFaces What kind of message are we sending our daughters & sons when they look through a magazine & there are no female faces to be seen? We all know that a picture says a 1,000 words. Just the name of a woman is not enough. In the last 20 years, Jewish publications were faced with a dilemma: what is a modest woman? Instead of embracing this as a time to create torahdig guidelines, editors got lazy. Rather than coming up with proper tznius parameters, they decided to remove women entirely & they rationalized: women are strong – they’ll be able to handle being omitted from the conversation. The 100s of people who have reached out to me aren’t going to tolerate this anymore. We can’t allow the fear of nuances to drive us towards extremism. With the internet in everyone’s pockets, we are raising a generation today that is faced with more influence from the outside world than ever before. If girls can’t see visible role models within the mainstream publications, they will turn to other more dangerous places. “Im Lo Achshav, Aimasai?” Now is the time to iron out the details until we can all agree to guidelines. Here’s my proposal: SHOW FEMALES FROM NECK UP. I wholly respect men & women who as a personal choice would prefer to keep their faces private. But the Jewish religion does not use veils. We unanimously agree that face coverings is not an acceptable standard for our community. If frum women are allowed to walk around outside with their faces uncovered, visit other people’s homes, & be out in the workforce, then their faces should be allowed to be in print as well. My husband & I have reached out to Daas Torah to petition this cause. The Rabbanim who shared our views regarding neck-up photos were unwilling to put their names behind this cause #politics. I have hit a brick wall & I am turning to you: Let it be known that your voice is louder than the extremists who have weaponized & twisted the words of Kol Kvoda Bas Melech Penima. Men, we need your voices too. We need your support because you’re the demographic that the publications “think” they’re “protecting” by not showing a woman’s face.

A post shared by Flatbush Girl (@flatbushgirl) on

Bialik is an outspoken feminist who runs an active YouTube page where she shares her —sometimes controversial — opinions with her fans. Good to know we’ll have her Instagram to turn to in this month of YouTube silence.

Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. Follow her on Twitter, @arr_scott

A message from our Publisher & CEO 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.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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.