Kmart Pulls Christmas Bag from Shelves After Jewish Activists Spot Hamas Problem
Most of the time, the social media feeds of the Australia Jewish Association reflect the hatred and anti-Semitism with which the Jewish people contend.
Its Facebook account is replete with attacks on synagogues, slurs against individual Jews and calls for self-defense classes for Jewish people.
“There has been a surge in antisemitism of all kinds across Australia. Neighborhoods with many Jews have not been spared,” the association wrote in a Thursday post.
Into this time of tension came the ham-bag incident.
Ham being a traditional Christmas meal and leftovers being a tradition of just about all family gatherings, Kmart Down Under was selling bags in which to put the leftovers. They bore the red and green colors of the season and the words “Merry Ham-mas.”
In normal times, rebuke from the pun police might suffice. But for Jewish people around the world, nothing is as it was before Oct. 7, when Hamas rampaged through southern Israel, leaving death in its wake.
“It’s not normal times, there are people that will distort things and will harass the Jewish community,” Dr. David Adler of the Australian Jewish Association told the West Australian.
And so the organization called out the item as just plain insensitive in a post on X.
“K-MART STUFF-UP! Check out the special Christmas bag currently available via K-Mart online. Yes, it’s real!! Although this is potentially funny (the AJA committee has tossed around some non-PC jokes) it’s really not a good look,” the post said.
“We suspect some product manager may cause the company some embarassment. So we’ve politely written to Wesfarmers corporate suggesting the product be pulled,” it said. Wesfarmers owns Kmart in Australia.
K-MART STUFF-UP!
Check out the special Christmas bag currently available via K-Mart online. Yes, it’s real!!
Although this is potentially funny (the AJA committee has tossed around some non-PC jokes) it’s really not a good look.
We suspect some product manager may cause the… pic.twitter.com/vGswVvvNG6
— Australian Jewish Association (@AustralianJA) November 8, 2023
A follow-up post announced that the item was no longer being sold.
“Of course, there are bigger issues to be addressed, dealing with the actual terrorism is important, but one of the other things we are dealing with is propaganda,” Adler said, according to the West Australian.
“I want to give credit to Kmart management as they acted very quickly,” he said.
A Wesfarmers representative said the item was one of those things.
“We got it wrong on this occasion, and we apologize unreservedly,” the representative said.
“When designing this product we clearly didn’t think through all the implications and the product has been removed from sale,” the representative said.
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