Kim Kardashian cut from photo on ultra-Orthodox Jewish news site that says she's a 'pornographic symbol'
This combination of two images shows a photo released by the Jerusalem Mayor's Office with Kim Kardashian, left, Kanye West, center, and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, right, at a Jerusalem restaurant during their visit on Monday, April 13, 2015, top, and a screen shot from the ultra-Orthodox Kikar HaShabbat website manipulated to obscure Kardashian. Credit: AP / Sapir Peles
An Israeli news website has obscured Kim Kardashian in a photo of the reality star and her husband, Kanye West, having dinner with the mayor of Jerusalem.
In an article focusing primarily on Mayor Nir Barkat hosting the dinner at a nonkosher restaurant, the ultra-Orthodox site Kikar HaShabbat (Shabbat Square) twice reprinted a photo from the mayor's Facebook page -- obscuring Kardashian in one by covering her with an enlarged copy of a restaurant receipt, and pixelating her image in the other.
Nissim Ben Haim, a Kikar HaShabbat editor, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the site did the photo manipulation because it considers Kardashian a "pornographic symbol" and contrary to ultra-Orthodox values.
The article did not name either Kardashian nor the mayor's wife, artist Beverly Barkat, writing only, "Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and his wife hosted . . . the singer Kanye West and his wife."
Mayor Barkat had posted the image on his Facebook page after Monday's meal. "Raising a glass to Jerusalem with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West!" he wrote, according to a Hebrew-English translation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "I asked them to serve as Jerusalem's ambassadors and spread the word that Jerusalem is an open city and welcomes everyone."
Kikar HaShabbat's article made no further mention of Kardashian and West, devoting its criticism to Barkat eating at the gourmet restaurant Mona, which serves "treif," or nonkosher food.
Kardashian, 34, who is of Armenian heritage, and West, 37, who is African-American, were in Jerusalem to baptize their 22-month-old daughter, North, at the Cathedral of St. James in the Armenian Quarter.
Within the insular ultra-Orthodox community, pictures of women often aren't shown out of modesty.
In January, an ultra-Orthodox newspaper removed Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and German Chancellor Angela Merkel from a photo. Hidalgo and Merkel were among a group of world leaders who gathered in the French capital to condemn the terrorist attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket that ultimately left 17 victims and three of the attackers dead.
Hillary Clinton, while serving as secretary of state in 2011, was removed from a photo issued by the White House showing the president, members of his staff and the military being briefed on the mission to capture Osama bin Laden.
