The Anti-Defamation League is calling out retailer Urban Outfitters for a shirt the Jewish group claims bears a symbol strikingly similar to the one used by Nazis to identify Jews during the Holocaust.
The sale of the shirt, which comes on the heels of National Holocaust Remembrance Day, is just the latest in a long line of offensive products from Urban Outfitters, the ADL tells FoxNews.com.
The T-shirt, sold by the Philadelphia-based Urbn Inc. but manufactured by Dutch label Wood Wood, is a yellow and features a blue six-pointed star on a breast pocket. But the ADL tells FoxNews.com that it’s far more sinister than just a simple tee — and is reminiscent of the yellow badges that Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear during the Holocaust.
“It’s a new low in Urban Outfitter’s consistent use of various offensive messages in what appears to be a quest for attention,” Barry Morrison, the Philadelphia regional director of the ADL, told FoxNews.com. “We are very troubled by it.”
“The juxtaposition of the six-pointed star on a yellow shirt brings about associations with the yellow Star of David that the Jews were forced to wear. A symbol marking Jews as subhuman — setting them apart and ultimately paving the way for their annihilation.”
The manufacturer of the shirt, which retails for $100, reached out to the ADL with an apology Monday, assuring that the logo consists of “patchwork and geometric patterns” and that it was not a Star of David. The company added that the shirt was part of the spring/summer collection for Wood Wood, but that the design from the breast pocket was ultimately removed from the final product after concerns were raised over its resemblance to the Holocaust imagery.
ADL National Director Abraham Foxman praised Wood Wood, saying it recognized “early on the shirt’s potentially offensive imagery and changed the design so the six-pointed star-shaped logo would no longer appear.”
The logo, however, can still be seen as the lead image on the Wood Wood website’s clothing collections page.
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3 Responses
I don’t see what the problem is. Perhaps ADL should spend its time fighting antisemitism and leave the fashion critiques to others.
Good grief. There’s enough antisemitism in the world without us having to see it where it isn’t there. The Torah threatens us that if we sin, then ורדף אתם קול עלה נדף, ונסו מנסת-חרב ונפלו ואין רדף; the sound of a leaf being blown by the wind will startle us, and we will flee as if from the sword, and fall down, when really there is nobody chasing us. This prophecy seems to have come true about the ADL and its ilk, who are quick to see antisemitism in everything they come across.
Just another reminder that we’re in galus.