Pitched Battle Over Shrek Jibe

An Israeli singer whose entry to this year's Eurovision song contest was described as sounding like a strangled cat yesterday won a court order against the Hollywood blockbuster Shrek 2, because the Hebrew version implies he has been castrated.

David D'Or obtained an injunction barring the film from being shown in Israel after his daughter said classmates who had seen it were making fun of her.

The row erupted after the film's Israeli distributors decided that a Hebrew-speaking audience would not understand a reference in the original English soundtrack to the American Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband's penis while he was asleep in 1993. In one scene, Shrek and his partner, Donkey, are deliberating whether to neuter Puss in Boots by suggesting they might "Bobbitt him". In the Hebrew that is changed to "Let's David D'Or him".

"This film intends to present me, in perpetuity, as a eunuch," Mr D'Or told Yedioth Ahronoth.

The distributors argued that the reference was not offensive because Mr D'Or has joked about his high voice in public, but they said they would remove the offending piece of dialogue.