Last week, Spiderman inflicted a heavy defeat on a Jewish adversary.
Avi Binyamin, proprietor of the “Kippa Man” yarmulke store in central Jerusalem, has settled out of court a lawsuit brought against him by Marvel Comics and Warner Brothers for unauthorized use of images of their iconic superheroes Spider-Man and Batman, respectively, on his products.
Binyamin will pay each company NIS 25,000 (about $6,800) in compensation, Maariv reported. In their joint lawsuits, the companies had asked for NIS 100,000 (about $27,000) each. Warner Brothers, the owner of DC Comics, had asked for an additional NIS 100,000 to cover lost revenue.
According to the legal representatives of Marvel and Warner Brothers, the companies intend to continue to pursue legal action against small companies in Israel that use their intellectual property without authorization.
But now the score is Spiderman 1 Jews 1.
The filming schedule of “The Amazing Spider Man 2” has changed in response to a request made by the haredi Orthodox community of Williamsburg.
Producers of the Hollywood franchise being shot at the Marcy Avenue Armory, a building located in the mostly Yiddish-speaking part of Williamsburg, agreed to reduce the presence of their vehicles in the neighborhood for the duration of Passover.
Plans to close a local intersection were canceled and most vehicles related to the production will be directed to private parking lots instead of taking up space on the street.
“We expressed the importance for Spider-Man to ‘pass-over’ filming during Passover, and they have answered our call,” the New York Post quoted Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn) as saying on Wednesday. “Thank you for letting my people park.”
Rabbi David Niederman, president of the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg, added: “I’m happy that an agreement was reached, and they’re not going to disrupt the preparation of the holiday — and the holiday itself.”
Update: In other superhero-religion news:
ONE of the Vatican’s main Twitter accounts was running stories about Batman, raising concerns it might have been hacked.
But two Vatican officials said the Twitter account and the website of its communications office had not been hacked and that the story is a legitimate Catholic News Service story.
The Vatican said the reason for the unusual posting was an “internal system failure” due to a non-native English speaker posting the story on the website.
The story had the headline: Holy Switcheroo! Batman has grown bitter, more vengeful with the years and details the evolution of the Batman comic franchise.
“Admittedly some people might have been thrown off by the headline,” said Greg Burke, a Vatican communications adviser.
