New York, May 10 (AP): An Orthodox Jewish newspaper yesterday apologised for digitally deleting secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton from a photo of President Barack Obama and his staff monitoring the raid by Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden.

The Brooklyn weekly Di Tzeitung, which says it does not publish images of women, printed the doctored photo on Friday. It issued a statement saying its photo editor had not read the “fine print” accompanying the White House photo that forbade any changes. The newspaper said it has sent its “regrets and apologies” to the White House and the state department.

A second woman, counterterrorism director Audrey Tomason, also was deleted from the photo, which captured a historic moment in the decade-long US effort to apprehend the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Di Tzeitung said it has a “long standing editorial policy” of not publishing women’s images. It explained that its readers “believe that women should be appreciated for who they are and what they do, not for what they look like, and the Jewish laws of modesty are an expression of respect for women, not the opposite”.

The weekly said Clinton, a Democrat who represented New York state as a US senator, had won overwhelming majorities in the Orthodox Jewish communities because they “appreciated her unique capabilities, talents and compassion for all”. Di Tzeitung, published in Yiddish, is sold at city newsstands, especially in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Borough Park neighbourhoods, which have many Orthodox Jewish residents.