A Blasphemous Christmas Tale
Rabbi Menachem Creditor | Times of Israel | December 1, 2019
In 2004, Major League Baseball decided to allow a Spider-Man movie to advertise on bases on the playing field, but were forced to rescind their decision due to angry reactions by the fans. That ads are making their ways onto batting helmets and selected team uniforms again is a cautionary tale of the patient and seemingly inexorable march of capitalism and a seemingly weak long-term societal memory.
So is it simply capitalism doing its thing when Christmas ornaments with images from the Auschwitz death camp are for sale [update: the item has been taken down due to the public outcry, though this Birkenau Jewish Death Mousepad is still available] on the world’s largest online retailer? Who’s idea was that anyway? Is it a personalized item, generated online by a Neo-Nazi in Des Moines? Perhaps it was the teenagers in London who beat a rabbi this past Friday night while screaming “Kill Jews” and “F$$k Jews.” The blasphemy of using Christian symbols to amplify Anti-Semitism has a complicated history. So too does the online peddling of hate, well-articulated (and dressed-down) by Sacha Baron Cohen just last week. [to continue reading, click here]
