Miles-Sash did not win her campaign. But the run made her acutely aware of what women in the Orthodox community are up against when trying to break out of community norms.
“I realized how easy it's for community leaders to demonize an Orthodox female candidate,” she said, while noting the “vicious” ad-hominem attacks lobbed her way during her campaign included critiques of her body, her parenting and her piousness. (On the day of the vote, she said members of the Orthodox community stationed themselves outside the polling sites and falsely told potential voters that she eats cheeseburgers, a food that is forbidden according to the Orthodox laws of kosher.)
“Looking back, I was naive,” said Miles-Sash, reflecting on the experience. “I entered the campaign starry-eyed and eager to inspire young Orthodox girls to become politically active. I thought maybe if they saw somebody wearing a wig running for office, it could become a familiar paradigm.” Several Orthodox women follow a strict dress code, including covering one’s hair with a hat, scarf or wig.
Miles-Sash doesn't have plans to run again in the immediate future. For now, she is using the social capital she has gained over the last few years to advocate for other causes affecting Orthodox Jewish women, including speaking out for women trapped in broken marriages because they are unable to attain a religious divorce mandated by Jewish law.
But as a social-media influencer and activist with over 50,000 Instagram followers, she remains passionate about fighting the trend towards the complete erasure of women’s images from Jewish media.
“Why do candidates put their photograph on palm cards? So constituents can get a sense of who that person is,” said Miles-Sash. “You can’t convey an identity without a face. It’s enough to try and muzzle the mouth of a woman — to do that to the face is painfully damaging.”
In the quickly approaching June primaries, Miles-Sash is supporting Adler, though she admitted to being disappointed that Adler declined to make the removal of female images a rallying cry in her campaign. “When I asked her about it, she said she didn’t want to risk estranging her base,” said Miles-Sash.
This, to a great extent, is true: Adler acknowledges the disadvantage of running a political campaign without her face, though at this point several constituents believe her to be a frontrunner in the race. But, as she sees it, the battle over her image — or rather the absence of it — is one she is willing to concede in order to win the war.