AFP

Jerusalem, May 21: Sex is off-limits in the holy city or at least a mention of the three-letter word.

Advertisers won’t put up billboards with the offending word in deeply religious Jerusalem and distributors won’t advertise the Hollywood film Sex and the city without it.

As a result, the film which opens in Israel next week will not be advertised on billboards in Jerusalem, nor in Petah tikva, a town near Tel aviv, that also has a large ultra-orthodox Jewish community.

The film’s distributor insists it will remain a “sex defender.” We are not ready to bow to the demand to remove the word sex from our advertising billboards in the two cities,” said Arieh Barak, spokesman for forum films.

“We have decided that we will not conduct a publicity campaign for the film in Jerusalem nor in Petah tikva.”

The dispute started when advertising firm Maximedia told local media that it decided not to put up billboards featuring actress Sarah Jessica Parker following requests from city officials, who were worried about “offending public sensitivities” with the mention of sex.

“They asked us not to advertise the word so as not to offend the religious public and we decided to respect their request,” Meir Shamir, Maximedia vice-president for advertising, told the Yediot aharonot.

“We have been cooperating with them for many years, and we did not want to fight with them over the word ‘sex’, which really is a controversial word.” When contacted by AFP, Maximedia declined to comment further.

However, in other Israeli cities, the advertising campaign for the Hollywood film will be on display uncensored.