Two actresses have been axed from advertisements for the Israeli movie “The Dealers,” displayed on billboards in Jerusalem – just months after hundreds of people participated in rallies in the capital to protest the exclusion of women from the public domain.

Other ads for the film – a comedy about friends from Jerusalem looking for a way to make money – feature four men and two women.

As a result of the exclusion, some protesters have threatened to boycott the movie, which opened Thursday. United King said the company that operates the billboards had asked for the actresses – Yuval Scharf and Michal Gavrielov – to be removed from the ad. The company, Zohar Hutzot, denied the accusation, saying, “We advertise whatever the advertisers want us to.”

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United King said in a statement: “Unfortunately, the censorship of women’s images from billboards is the result of a decision we consider unacceptable, and is not in our interest. In the past two years we have unsuccessfully struggled against this unacceptable directive.”

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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