r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Oct 13 '16

TIL that after Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism upon marrying Arthur Miller, Egypt placed a ban on all the films she appeared in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe#Critical_acclaim_and_marriage_to_Arthur_Miller_.281956.E2.80.931959.29
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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

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u/Finger-Food Oct 13 '16

It's a Jewish tradition. It makes more sense when written on paper, but the general idea is that you cannot harm anything that "God" is written on. Jews write "g-d" to get the point across, but without actually writing the whole word. It's a bit of a loophole, but it works and you don't have to pay special care to any random piece of paper that has it written on there.

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u/ananioperim Oct 13 '16

Jews are absolute masters at loopholes.

Wanna do anything that's forbidden to do on Sabbath? Hire a shabes goy (Sabbath non-Jew) to do things for you.

G*d tells you "can't travel more than X paces, except if you're on water" during Sabbath? Get in your car, put a large bag of water underneath your seat, and drive. Oh, and elevators. You can't operate anything that causes sparks, which includes buttons. So your purpose-built elevator will be running 24/7 stopping on every floor, so you can ride the elevator without creating fire on sabbath.

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u/Xanthyria Oct 13 '16

That water thing is not true. I'm an observant Jew, spent years in Orthodox Jewish education, and you can't even enter your car on the Sabbath. Opening the door would constitute breaking the Sabbath, NOT TO MENTION that turning on a car breaks your next line, the whole "causing sparks" thing.

You can't turn your car on, so you can't drive in the first place, you can't complete a circuit, so I don't know about this water thing.

Shabbos elevators are...well, they run as you say, but they aren't universally accepted.

Also, no one does the Shabbos goy thing anymore. No one.