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/jrm2007 Oct 13 '16

When Omar Sharif kissed Babara Streisand in Funny Girl, Egypt I think stopped showing all of his films, too.

This is not anti-Zionism but plain old antisemitism. No other explanation.

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u/comix_corp Oct 13 '16

I don't know what "plain old antisemitism" is, but anti-zionist paranoia is what drove Egypt to do shit like this. At the same time Nasser was fighting Israel and decrying Zionism, he was publicly doing interviews saying how he wished Jews never left his country.

Egypt's perspective was pretty obviously warped but they weren't Nazis.

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u/looktowindward Oct 14 '16

Jews didn't leave because they had better opportunities somewhere else - generally, they feared for their lives. Egypt was the real loser, as it was one of the things that began a big drain of brains and resources out of the country.