Shrek joke causes Israel offence

Shrek 2 is breaking box office records for an animated feature

The Hebrew version of Shrek 2 has been modified to take out a castration joke.

Israeli singer David Daor complained over a reference to him in the Hebrew translation that he said implied he had been castrated.

The animated comedy had one character threaten to emasculate another by saying "Let's do a David Daor on him" - a reference to the singer's voice.

The Israeli distributors told BBC News Online they had changed the remark and new versions of the film had been sent to cinemas across Israel by Sunday.

"This film intends to present me, in perpetuity, as a eunuch, a man with no testicles, and turn me into a laughing stock," Mr Daor had told an Israeli newspaper ahead of a legal hearing on Monday.

But by then, the distributors, Elrom2000, had had a week to change the controversial sentence to "let's take a sword and neuter him", spokeswoman Neta Ben-Tsvi told BBC News Online.

Ms Ben-Tsvi said the judge had accepted the change they had made.

She said they had meant no offence to the singer who represented Israel at the last Eurovision song contest.

"We received what we wanted, and the movies were switched," Mr Daor's lawyer, Yigal Doron, told the Jerusalem Post newspaper.

Since it debuted in the US on 19 May, Shrek 2 has become one of the top 10 most successful films to date, clinching record box office figures for an animated film.