‘Anti-feminist’ vandals in Israel deface images of women

By LAURIE KELLMAN
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is having a difficult time keeping images of women in public from being defaced. Billboards showing women — whether they are soccer players, musicians or young girls — have been repeatedly defaced and torn down by religious extremists in Jerusalem and other cities. The vandalism is widely blamed on a small number of fringe members of the insular ultra-Orthodox community, which emphasizes modesty among women and has traditionally carried outsized influence in Israeli politics. This year, the portrait of a Holocaust survivor posted on an outside wall of Jerusalem’s City Hall complex was spray painted and cleaned up five times. Orthodox women say the vandals “erasing” women from public spaces harms their health, finances and education.