Actor Drops Out of Film Shot Here

By on March 19, 2008 6:40 am in Uncategorized

Natalie Portman's portion of New York I Love You,which was shot here in Brooklyn Heights, has lost one of its lead actors.  Abraham Karpen, a Hasidic Jew who lives in Brooklyn, dropped out of the film reportedly after being pressured by his rabbis:

ba_portman_080313_ssv.jpgABC News: Rabbi Orders Actor to Quit: He really didn't grasp that this was a movie and that Natalie Portman was a star. He thought it was more of a commercial, a short thing," said Isaac Abraham, a Hasidic community leader. "I think he was a little naive. He didn't grasp the magnitude of what he was doing."

The magnitude of what Karpen was doing became clear after photos of the budding actor walking with Portman under the Brooklyn Bridge surfaced in the media.

"We don't watch TV, use the Internet or see movies. It's against our religion and our traditions. There are strong guidelines about what you can and can't do," Abraham said.

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  • No One of Consequence

    Sloppy, at least we’ll be able to keep each other company in hell.

  • Bart

    Think of the Amish and how they shun technology. When you don’t belong to a particular religion, sometimes the rules for living seem absurd. But when you are deep within the culture of a religion, maintaining your religious/cultural ties becomes very important.

    What I find interesting about very orthodox religions is what technologies the male elders deem acceptable. Paper and ink are allowed and yet I don’t think they were around in 1000 BCE. And what about the glasses of many religious adherents; an invention of the Renaissance?

    Personally I prefer to participate in the technologies, medical advances, and cultural innovations that have been created by humanity since the Neanderthalic era.

  • http://www.myspace.com/billyreno Billy Reno

    The Sid elders didn’t want him to compromise his eternity by working on Shabbos.

  • nancy

    Wow a lot of negativity. It’s what he believes, and religious Jews do follow their rabbi’s dictates quite closely. So they’ll get someone to replace him, not a big deal. Every religion has it’s ultra orthodox follwings

  • hoppy

    Easily replaced by Paul Giamatti in a black hat and hasid wig.

  • anon

    The Hassids are completely demented.
    They would not be able to get away with their weird
    sexist and backward ways if they were a Christian sect.
    Were they the ones who made their women burn their wigs when they found out the hair came from Hindu women in India? Why didn’t they donate the wigs to cancer clinics?
    Because they are self-absorbed, sexist, and medieval.

  • GHB

    Nancy, try to ignore the negative posts. It just goes to show that intolerance and hate are alive and well… even in The Heights. (As if the swastikas weren’t enough)

  • 8theiz

    It’s not intolerant to object to something that is absolutely and totally anti-human, illogical and detrimental to the progress of man as a feeling, thinking being.

    It is akin to being tolerant to the concept that the Earth is flat. Oh, I forgot that some religions believe that as well.

    Tolerance and blind acceptance are two different things. I am tolerant that there are people that believe that women should be subjugated, that technology should be shunned and that ignorance of the world outside of a ten block area is OK. I don’t have to accept such idiocy.

    (One thing I do find interesting, however, is that when one of these “believers” end up in a hospital they have no problem letting a Hindu doctor use a set of defibrillators made by Chinese atheists while a Jamaican Catholic nurse assists to keep them alive. I guess that is OK)

  • 8theiz

    It’s not intolerant to object to something that is absolutely and totally anti-human, illogical and detrimental to the progress of man as a feeling, thinking being.

    It is akin to being tolerant to the concept that the Earth is flat. Oh, I forgot that some religions believe that as well.

    Tolerance and blind acceptance are two different things. I am tolerant that there are people that believe that women should be subjugated, that technology should be shunned and that ignorance of the world outside of a ten block area is OK. I don’t have to accept such idiocy.

    (One thing I do find interesting, however, is that when one of these “believers” end up in a hospital they have no problem letting a Hindu doctor use a set of defibrillators made by Chinese atheists while a Jamaican Catholic nurse assists to keep them alive. I guess that is OK)