In competition with 67 cities, Jerusalem did succeed in becoming one of the cities appearing on the first edition of the new International Monopoly game.
Hasbro announced the cities appearing on the new game board include; Montreal, Riga, Cape Town, Belgrade, Paris, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, New York, London, Barcelona, Rome, Tokyo, Istanbul and Jerusalem.
Six months ago, a poll began circulating around the world, asking people to vote for cities to be included in the game. Kodkod, which represents Monopol, the Israeli Monopoly, called on Jews around the world to begin casting their ballot for the Jewish capital. Even the Foreign Ministry got involved, calling on Israelis to vote. At the end, Jerusalem is indeed one of 22 cities that have been selected in the new game.
Montreal is the most expensive property, followed by Riga. The least expensive are Gdynia (Poland) and Taipa (Taiwan).
Kodkod officials believe that in the 75 years since Monopoly was launched, over 750 million people have played the game, and it was purchased worldwide by over 250 million in 103 nations and 37 languages. Officials also report that to date, there are 200 different versions of the game.
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(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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12 Responses
Such a zechus for Yerushalayim ihr haKodesh, TvTBB”A.
Not!
so glad to have been a help in this effort. a few months ago there was a request to write letters to complain about the issue of Jerusalem on the intl. boardgame. i am glad that we all made a difference. by the way anyone know yet when it is coming out and what the cost will be?
They most probably did it for the arabs who live there, not because thay love us Yidden.
When the voting first began, the city was listed as “Jerusalem, Israel”. Upon the objection of several groups, the listing was changed to “Jerusalem”. The reason Hasbro gave for making the change was that since no other city was listed with a country, it was not proper for Jerusalem to be thus listed.
After you buy the property and build on it, you have to give it to the player on your left.
I think it’s a shailoh! Would you be allowed to trade Jerusalem for another city; or would that be considered a bizayon?
Interesting Halachic question:
Would trading Jerusalem for another city be permitted? Or would it be considered a bizayon of Eretz Yisrael?
Which property is it. Why is it not “Boardwalk”?
To add to number 6, bek721, along with giving it to the player on your left you also give them a get out of jail free card.
You guys sound like those Lit. professors who try to teitch-up Shakespeare, what he meant by things in his plays. You want the truth about Shakespeare? He had a theater, he wrote plays, in order to make money. In those days there was no TV/internet/video games etc. Not many people were literate.
So you don’t need to try to read every nuance into what Hasbro did about putting Jerusalem on the board.
#5, Actually, based on the presumptive complaints, they removed only Israel. For a time, it was listed as Jerusalem, while other cities had countries.
When I asked them about it, they said they hadn’t had time to change all of them and were in the process. I asked why they started with Jeruslaem which was neither alphabetically first or last by city name or country. They had no answer.
I then wrote an e-mail to a number of people, including executives at Hasbro, and told them i was writing an article on the game for a New York magazine and wanted their position on the changes. Within fifteen minutes, the site was changed for all countries. I actually have screen shots I took before they finished changing everything.
I spoke to CBS2 about doing a story but they decided they weren’t interested in enough.
Oh well, Boruch HaShem for galus. Makes us rely on HaKadosh Boruch Hu not democracy.
9, it’s not boardwalk because it was based on votes, not chashivus. That’s why Riga, Latvia is park place, they were busy beavers. (Which is why Montreal is Boardwalk.)
Yidden, it is time to hang our head in shame. WHAT a Bizzoyon! WHAT AN EMBARRESSMENT!! What has become of us!? Aveenu Shebashamyim PLEASE have ROCHMONAS on us!!!HOW COULD IT BE THAT JERUSALEM IR HAKODESH was not like Bordwalk!!! How could we have LOST to Montreal of all places!!!