A Torah educator shared this story with me yesterday, regarding my Jewish Action piece from way back in 2012. She agreed to let me share it, with her name removed:
“Just to let you know how strongly I feel on this subject, I gave your piece to my 8th grade girls the year it came out. I wanted them to write a pro-con essay on the subject. I thought it was brilliant but … You would not believe the bitter complaints I got from the parents. So much so that I had to pull the assignment. The claims were that I was making the girls question daas Torah and next I would be asking them whether or not they should keep Shabbos! It is those kind of parents who make teaching rather unpleasant to say the least, and I was rather astonished that the school made me pull the “controversial” piece, but live and learn….
…When the menahal called me to tell me to pull the piece, I told him that it was a perfect Jewish subject for pro-con essays, better than the articles I was taking from the local paper to use instead. He told me it is written in the Torah that no pictures are allowed. I said (politely) that if that was the case then differnt publications wouldn’t have different rules regarding pictures. He still insisted it was clearly not allowed. I asked – where/why -. His reply “kol kevudai bas melech PNIMAH!” “