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Two giant billboard ads featuring a half-clad Bar Refaeli have been taken down after the wrath of ultra-Orthodox Jews descended upon them.

One of the ads for clothing company Fox – located on the busy Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv – showed the Israeli supermodel lying on a bed with local Survivor star Noam Tor, while the other had the couple locking lips.

Leading the opposition was rabbi Mordechai Bloi, chairman of the Haredi group Guardians of Sanctity and Education.

According to ynet.com, the group’s website reported extensively on “a crass and rude advertising campaign like none other” and said the accompanying TV version of the ads managed to shock “even non-religious viewers”. The Haredi public must “go to war for its right to live according to its beliefs”, the website said.

Bloi told Israeli radio: “Whether people wish to see this or not is a personal choice but they cannot be permitted to poison the public environment.”

Amid hints of a boycott of Fox stores, the 400 sq.m ads came down within a day, replaced by a head shot of the model, her body now well concealed by clothing from Fox’s winter catalogue.

Fox said in a statement it had decided to replace the pictures “due to a number of appeals received by the chain over recent days. Despite the limited number of the appeals, the chain has decided to consider them because it is a fashion chain that appeals to the general public and all its sectors.”

Source: Splash News