Too Hot for the BQE?

Shimon Weiser was driving along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway returning to his home in Williamsburg when he looked up and was appalled to see a photograph of bikini-clad women plastered across a billboard.

Weiser is one of the more than 100 members of the Hasidic community in Williamsburg who are outraged by an advertisement that they say goes against their religion’s guidelines on modest behavior.

“Everyone can do what they want,” said Rabi Abraham Zimmerman. But motorists travelling along a major mass transit route would have to drive with their eyes closed to not see the racy image located in Fort Green on Park Avenue.

“These ad companies are hurting us, hurting our region, hurting our values, hurting the way we raise our children,” Zimmerman said.

The billboard shows a bikini-wearing blonde straddling a man with her legs in a swimming pool. Another woman, wearing a strapless leopard print one-piece swimsuit, stares provocatively up at her viewer.

Subway riders have seen the advertisement too. The same photograph of six men and women lounging in an aqua blue swimming pool is plastered on the wall in several subway stations around Brooklyn.

The advertisement is meant to get people excited about the season premier of sitcom 90210, which airs Sept. 2nd on the CW Television Network. The show describes itself as “An edgy, contemporary spin-off of the iconic drama Beverly Hills, 90210, the new 90210 looks at life through the eyes of Annie Wilson whose first day at West Beverly Hills High School leaves no doubt they’re not in Kansas anymore.”

The billboard reads, “New drama, same zip code.”

But Hasidic Jewish leaders want 90210 kept away from 11211.

Parents can shelter their children from the racy parts of society by turning the television off. But on the expressway, people traveling to work and children going to school have no power over what they are exposed to on billboards, Zimmerman said.

“They throw it in front of our faces whether we want to see it or not. That’s a terrible thing,” Zimmerman said.

The Hasidic faith believes in strict modest dress for men and women, who wear long skirts and sleeves past the elbow, according to Shmuel Boteach, author of “Wisdom, understanding, and knowledge: Basic concepts of Hasidic thought.” Men do not touch or shake hands with women except for women in their family.

“They should at least have the decency to respect us,” said Weiser, a community board member who said he has received a lot of complaints from Jewish residents.

The Fifth Avenue advertising company that put up the billboard, Fuel Outdoor, declined multiple requests for comment.

Zimmerman said he is upset by the increasing trend of companies pushing the envelope in using racy images.

On the other hand, some advertising companies have taken Jewish leaders’ concerns seriously and pulled their ads off their billboards.

Fashion clothing store H&M agreed to take down a billboard in May after they received a letter of complaint from The United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg. They replaced a photograph of an H&M model wearing a bikini with a more toned-down photograph.

Last summer, the nondenominational Times Square Church’s pastor was horrified when a Washlet advertisement featuring models’ nude buttocks was put up on his church’s building. Pastor Neil Rhodes went to state court and successfully blocked the advertisement, which was not exactly putting worshippers in a holy state of mind before Sunday services.

The UJO hopes to do the same. Last week they sent a letter asking Fuel Outdoor to tear the 90201 pool ad down, but the company has been mute so far.