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Adidas CEO: Kanye West didn’t mean his antisemitic comments
(JTA) – The new CEO of the athletic wear giant Adidas said he doesn’t believe the company’s former collaborator, Kanye West, “meant what he said” when the rapper went on a months-long series of antisemitic tirades that cost him the company’s endorsement last fall.
Bjørn Gulden, who joined Adidas from rival Puma in January after it had already dropped West, made his comments last week on a podcast hosted by Norwegian hedge fund manager and philanthropist Nicolai Tangen.
Adidas dropped West, who now goes by Ye, after weeks of public pressure that followed him tweeting he was going “Death Con 3 on Jewish people” and saying on a podcast about the company, “I can literally say antisemitic [expletive] and they cannot drop me.”
In his latest comments, Gulden didn’t mention the reason behind the partnership ending, referring to West’s remarks as “some statements, which wasn’t that good. And that caused [Adidas] to break the contract and withdraw the product.”
He called the collapse of West’s Yeezy brand “very unfortunate, because I don’t think he meant what he said and I don’t think he’s a bad person. He just came across that way. And that meant we lost that business, one of the most successful collabs in the history. Very sad.”
An Adidas spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company’s position on ending the Yeezy partnership hasn’t changed. West himself has since announced that he no longer hates Jewish people after watching the Jewish actor Jonah Hill in the movie “21 Jump Street.”
The Yeezy brand collaboration was worth more than $1 billion and accounted for a significant share of Adidas’ revenue. The company is now stuck with a large surplus of Yeezy-branded merchandise. Gulden announced earlier this year that Adidas would sell off the products and donate the proceeds to “the organizations that are helping us and that were also hurt by Kanye’s comments.”
So far that plan has generated at least $400 million in revenue for the company, of which Gulden said it has donated at least $10 million to organizations including the Anti-Defamation League (whose CEO sported Adidas sneakers onstage once the company agreed to drop West and partner with them on new initiatives), Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change. The company expects its donations to anti-hate groups to ultimately exceed $100 million; West will also receive a portion of the proceeds from his royalties plan.
Also on the podcast, Gulden discussed the Dassler brothers who founded Adidas “during and after the Second World War,” without mentioning that the German brothers were Nazi Party members.
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The post Adidas CEO: Kanye West didn’t mean his antisemitic comments appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations
Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) was a Polish-Jewish artist whose work reflected the historic times he lived: the two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the birth of the State of Israel. In 1940, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he visited Canada to popularize the struggle against Nazism. […]
The post Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
President Joe Biden embarks on a series of fundraising events across two states on Saturday as he works to stamp out a crisis of confidence in his re-election campaign following a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit the upscale New York beach enclave known as the Hamptons for a campaign fundraiser hosted by hedge-fund billionaire Barry Rosentein. Later in the day, he will travel to New Jersey for a fundraiser hosted by wealthy New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Fellow hedge-fund founder Eric Mindich and his Tony Award-winning producer wife Stacey, celebrity couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and actor Michael J. Fox are all listed as members of the host committee at the New York event, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
Biden told a rally in North Carolina on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would heed calls from Democrats who want him to drop out of the race.
Biden‘s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses during Thursday night’s debate heightened voter concerns that the 81-year-old might not be fit to serve another four-year term.
The Biden campaign on Saturday boasted it had raised more than $27 million between debate day through Friday evening, but questions remain about whether the debate performance will hurt fundraising, at least in the short term.
The post Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world’s largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.
“The League’s member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body “does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner.”
Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.
The post Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.