Uncategorized
The Hanukkah merch market has exploded. But are Jews feeling more represented?
(JTA) — It was early November when Nicholas Wymer-Santiago walked into his local Target in Austin, Texas, and realized it was beginning to feel a lot like Hanukkah.
Instead of an endcap with a limited array of Hanukkah basics, as he had seen in past years, there stretched out a whole aisle of holiday products: pillows; dreidel-shaped pet toys; window decals; menorahs in the shape of lions, corgis and whales; and so much more. Even the $5-and-under impulse-buys section filled with seasonal products had a supply of Hanukkah goods, including a Star of David-shaped bowl and a set of dishes labeled “sour cream” and “applesauce.”
“In a good way, it was overwhelming at first, because there’s so much and I kind of want to buy it all,” Wymer-Santiago recalled feeling as he stood in the holiday section, looking up at a large photograph of a Hanukkah celebration alongside others showcasing Christmas.
The higher education administrator at the University of Texas decided to limit himself, at first taking home just a tea towel and a matching mug printed with a Hanukkah motif.
“And then I came back twice, maybe three times and each time I bought more and more items that I know I probably don’t need,” he said. “I think I’ve just had so much excitement about the novelty of it all, and having the ability to purchase these items, many of which I’ve never seen before.”
Wymer-Santiago is hardly alone in loading his cart with Hanukkah merchandise. Across the United States, big-box stores appear to be stocking more Hanukkah products than ever — and while off-color items such as Hanukkah gnomes and “Oy to the World” dish towels have raised eyebrows, the real story might be that American retailers have decked their shelves with menorahs, tableware and other items that are appropriate, affordable and often downright tasteful.
For many American Jews, the result is a sense of inclusion at a time of unease — although some are wrestling with what it means to have access to a fast-fashion form of Judaica.
“It is very exciting to go into Target or Michaels or a Walmart and to see Hanukkah merchandise,” said Ariel Scheer Stein, an influencer who shares crafting and holiday content for Jewish families on Instagram, where she has more than 20,000 followers.
Social media influencers in Miami, New York City and Denver respond to the flood of Hanukkah products at their local Target shops in 2022. (Instagram/@jamwithjamie/@cupofjo)
“The feeling is almost like pride and like we’re being seen and represented,” Stein added. “In a sea of Christmas … it feels really great, even if it’s a much smaller representation, that the Jewish holiday is there also and the Jewish community is being acknowledged and represented.”
The idea that retailers have stocked up on Hanukkah goods to make Jews feel represented is tempting, but it’s probably not the only reason for a shift in the market, according to Russell Winer, deputy chair of the marketing department at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He said that while an endcap — the small set of shelves at the end of an aisle — might sometimes be given over for symbolic purposes, the devotion of an entire aisle at the busiest time of the year is purely a business decision.
“These stores are very sophisticated in what they put in them,” Winer said. “They’re not going to put stuff on the shelves, especially at the holidays, if they don’t think they’re going to sell.”
There are signs that the Hanukkah market might be much wider than the proportion of Americans who identify as Jewish, 2.5%, would suggest. Numerator, a respected consumer trends polling firm, found in a survey of 11,000 consumers conducted in January 2022 that 14% of respondents said they were “definitely” or “probably” celebrating Hanukkah this year, compared to 96% for Christmas. More than half of the Hanukkah celebrants said they expected to spend more than $50 on the holiday — suggesting that retailers can expect hundreds of millions of dollars in Hanukkah spending this year.
Part of that marketplace is the growing number of families in which Hanukkah is celebrated alongside other holidays, usually Christmas. Most American Jews who have married in the last decade have done so to people who are not Jewish, according to the 2020 Pew study of American Jews; most of them say they are raising their children exclusively or partly as Jews. They may want to have products that allow Hanukkah to share the stage equitably with the other celebrations in their family.
“I’m not terribly surprised from a cultural standpoint that there’s more merchandise,” said Winer, who is Jewish. He said he and his wife had purchased Hanukkah stockings for their grandchildren, who are being raised in two faith traditions. (Evangelical Christians and Messianics, those who adopt Jewish practices while believing in the divinity of Jesus, also represent an emerging market for Jewish ritual objects.)
Stein offered another theory to explain the uptick in interest in Hanukkah products: the fact that social media and Zoom meetings have made home lives more transparent than ever.
“The communal sharing of lives, whether you’re an influencer or even my friends on Facebook showing what their display is this year or taking a picture of a recipe they were really proud of, making latkes from scratch — there’s just more visibility than there has been in the past,” she said. “And that’s probably a factor.”
Whatever the reasons, shoppers are noticing. Like Stein and countless other Jewish influencers, Rabbi Yael Buechler, a devoted observer of Jewish consumer trends, has offered tours of Hanukkah merchandise to her social media followers. Wearing Hanukkah pajamas that she designed and sells, Buechler has posted 14 videos to TikTok showcasing the Hanukkah collections of national retailers and assigns each store a “yay” or “nay” based on several metrics, including whether items display accurate Hebrew or appear to be generic blue-and-white items being passed off as made for the holiday. The videos, which have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, have given her a broad view of what’s available to the Hanukkah consumer.
Welcome to the second installment of Hanukkah merch: YAY or NAY? .@target edition .Items were rated by:If the product was beyond blue & white Correct Hebrew Whether the Hanukkiyah was kosher If the Hanukkah pun was goodWhether animal was Hanukkah punnable (i.e. Menorasaurus) .#hanukkahiscoming #hanukkahfails #hanukkahcountdown #hanukkahyayornay #yayornay #hanukkah2022 #targetfinds #hanukkahpresents #hanukkahpjs #hanukkahgifts #hanukkahcheck #chanukah2022
“I see a lot more products this year than any other year,” said Buechler, who works at a Jewish school outside New York City. “I see a lot of new prints. I see more creativity in the market. I see more humor in the market.”
Like Wymer-Santiago, Buechler said Target, which has 2,000 locations across the United States, stood out as offering the widest array of products and the lowest proportion of “fails,” or products that miss the mark religiously, culturally or aesthetically.
“They have really stepped it up,” Buechler said. “Target also carries the Nickelodeon ‘Rugrats’ Hanukkah sweatshirts that are just brilliant. … I would definitely say they get the biggest ‘yay’ for this year.”
Target, which has a track record of using inclusive imagery in its advertisements and in-store promotions, declined to answer questions about its offerings, including how much bigger its Hanukkah collection is this year than in the past and how widely the products for Jewish buyers have been distributed. But a spokesperson said the feeling Wymer-Santiago and Stein described after visiting their local stores is exactly what the company is trying to cultivate.
“Target is committed to creating an inclusive guest experience in which all guests feel represented,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. The spokesperson noted that Target’s Hanukkah assortment “was developed in collaboration with Jewish team members and input from our Jewish employee resource group” and crosses several of the retailer’s in-house brands.
One of those lines, Opalhouse by Jungalow, was created by a Jewish artist, Justina Blakeney. Last year, Blakeney’s first Hanukkah collection included plates and pillows, as well as a gold menorah shaped like a dove. This year, Blakeney added new pillow designs and a clay menorah.
Target’s website prominent promotes Hanukkah products, including from a house brand by a Jewish creator named Justina Blakeney. (Screenshot)
“If I could go back in time and tell elementary-school-aged Justina (or ‘Tina’ as I was called back then) that I would have a chance to design a Hanukkah collection for Target, I would have lost my mind,” she wrote in an October blog post revealing the collection.
Hanukkah goods have always been widely available through Jewish merchandisers and at synagogue bazaars — but those products have been available only to people who already engaged in Jewish communities. Amazon and other online retailers have increased access, but only for people who are hunting for Hanukkah supplies. A Hanukkah aisle at Target, in contrast, reaches the many Jews who may not already have robust holiday traditions.
Stein, who said she particularly regretted not snapping up a marble dreidel sculpture that quickly sold out at Target, said she saw only benefits in promoting major retailers’ Hanukkah offerings, even if doing so has made her something of an unpaid advertiser at times.
“Right now, especially with the rise of antisemitism, if there are ways that we can spur Jewish joy — and for me, that’s by sharing and inspiring people with different kinds of Hanukkah merch and home decor and jewelry — I think that’s great,” she said.
Not everyone is thrilled by the shift in the marketplace. The sweeping Hanukkah displays are drawing criticism from those who have long lamented that the American primacy of Christmas has caused Jews to focus too much on a minor holiday, while leaving holidays with more religious significance relatively uncelebrated.
“I think: What would it feel like to see a giant Shavuot display?” Wymer-Santiago said.
The fast-fashion aspect of the big-box retailers’ offerings, many of which are imported from China, also raises concerns about whether easy access to trendy Judaica comes at environmental and cultural costs.
“How about we don’t extract fossil fuels to make crap that no one needs and that makes Jewish communities less distinctive?” asked Dan Friedman, a writer and longtime climate activist, though he emphasized that systemic change, rather than tweaks to purchasing decisions by Jewish consumers, is needed to avert climate catastrophe.
For Buechler and others, the benefits of a mass-market Hanukkah merchandise boom outweigh any possible drawbacks.
“As a rabbi, I am all for anything that will make Hanukkah celebrations more engaging and potentially lengthen a family celebration,” said Buechler, who said her own collection had outgrown the four tubs it occupied several months ago, and that one of her favorite purchases was of a Hanukkah sweater for lizards that she bought for a friend’s guinea pig.
“I really do believe that owning different kinds of Hanukkah merch, whether apparel or otherwise, will increase the likelihood that a family will celebrate with friends with family for more nights than they would have last year,” she added.
Nicholas Wymer-Santiago takes a selfie showing off his menorah collection, mostly acquired at his local Target in Austin, Texas. (Courtesy of Wymer-Santiago)
Wymer-Santiago plans to celebrate the holiday with his family in Ohio, meaning that he will be leaving behind much of this year’s Target haul in his Austin apartment: the device that makes dreidel-shaped waffles, the window decals that advertise the holiday to passersby, the giant dreidel-shaped jar that he has filled with, well, dreidels. He said he planned to make room in his suitcase for at least one item: a $5 menorah that reminds him of his dog.
Wymer-Santiago said a piece of him worried that Target was taking advantage of his excitement about Jewish representation, the way it has been criticized for doing around LGBTQ Pride celebrations, to sell him stuff he doesn’t need.
“Every time I buy something from Target in general, but definitely for Hanukkah, I think about this,” he said. “But then I think: This thing is so cute. And I just need it.”
—
The post The Hanukkah merch market has exploded. But are Jews feeling more represented? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Ukraine reburies Nazi collaborator with state honors, drawing Israeli condemnation
(JTA) — Israel criticized Ukraine Monday after President Volodymyr Zelensky gave full state honors to a Ukrainian nationalist leader who was part of a movement that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.
During a reburial ceremony on Sunday, Zelensky described Andriy Melnyk and his wife, Sofia Fedak-Melnyk, as “iconic Ukrainians of the 20th century who are deeply respected,” according to The New York Times.
Melnyk led one of the factions of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists during its collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II. Though the Ukrainian organization shared a mutual opposition to Soviet rule with the Nazis, it also promoted antisemitic rhetoric and some of its members participated in the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. Melnyk initially sought cooperation with Nazi Germany but was later detained by the Nazis as relations with Ukrainian nationalist groups deteriorated.
The ceremony marked the latest flashpoint in a longstanding dispute over Ukraine’s commemoration of World War II-era nationalist figures linked to Nazi collaboration. In 2018, the country designated the birthday of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera as a holiday, and in 2017, a statue was unveiled honoring a nationalist leader whose regime killed tens of thousands of Jews in pogroms during the Russian Revolution.
The remains of Melnyk and his wife were exhumed from Luxembourg last week and then transported to Ukraine for reburial at Kyiv’s National Military Memorial, which opened last year for soldiers killed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Glory to every Ukrainian hero! Glory to all our Ukrainian warriors! Glory to our people!,” Zelensky, who is Jewish, wrote in a post on X marking the ceremony, adding that he was “grateful to everyone who has worked to make such returns of great Ukrainian figures possible and to give the Ukrainian People their own pantheon of heroes.”
The reburial was quickly decried by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, which wrote in a post on X that it was “deeply troubled by such national commemorations, which come at the expense of historical truth and the memory of Holocaust victims.”
“Honoring the leader of a movement that supported and collaborated with Nazi Germany during the persecution and murder of millions of Jews undermines the moral integrity essential to Holocaust remembrance,” the post read.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry wrote on X that there is “no place for ignoring historical truth and the memory of the victims murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.”
The post Ukraine reburies Nazi collaborator with state honors, drawing Israeli condemnation appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Trump administration again sues UCLA over antisemitism, alleging ‘hostile educational environment’
(JTA) — The U.S. Department of Justice sued the University of California for the second time this year over allegations of an antisemitic campus environment at UCLA, claiming the school “was deliberately indifferent to the suffering of its Jewish and Israeli students” after Oct. 7.
The federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday, claims UCLA violated the students’ civil rights by failing to intervene during pro-Palestinian encampment activity in early 2024. It follows an earlier suit that focused on the university’s treatment of its Jewish and Israeli employees, and comes 10 days after the university unveiled its own “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism.”
“Earlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic hostile work environment,” assistant U.S. attorney general Harmeet Dhillon said in a press release. “Now, the Department of Justice calls UCLA to account for its toleration of the equally appalling hostile educational environment against its Jewish and Israeli students.”
Requests for comment to the Justice Department and UCLA were not immediately returned.
The new suit draws on widely reported accounts of UCLA’s campus environment in spring 2024, when protesters in pro-Palestinian encampments clashed with pro-Israel counter-protesters, sparking violence and turmoil. The failure to protect Jewish students violated their Title VI civil rights, attorneys said.
Citing the report of UCLA’s own task force on antisemitism, published in response to the 2024 campus upheaval, the suit states, “UCLA’s leadership apparently preferred a do-nothing ‘de-escalation strategy’ to protecting their Jewish and Israeli students from an angry mob organized by peers armed with tasers, lumber, and a sword.”
The Justice Department is seeking several redress measures, including the return of all federal grants made to UCLA “during the time of UCLA’s noncompliance with Title VI.” The school had previously resolved several Title VI antisemitism cases under the Biden administration, and also reached a $6.13 million settlement with Jewish groups in a private suit related to the spring 2024 incidents on campus — a case cited in DOJ’s new lawsuit.
The Trump administration has sought to make a particular example of UCLA in its aggressive approach to campus antisemitism. Officials had sought to levy fines in excess of $1 billion against the public university for its alleged failure to protect Jewish and Israeli students, until a federal judge intervened. Several DOJ lawyers have left the department over its UCLA investigation, telling reporters the case was “fraudulent,” a “sham” and driven by pressure to “find” evidence to support further legal action against UCLA.
In addition, some of the most violent clashes on the campuses included perpetrators on both sides of the conflict, leading some members of the UCLA Jewish community to complain that pro-Israel counter-protesters ultimately undercut the Jewish students’ legitimate grievances regarding the harassment they had been facing inside the campus gates.
And the campus environment for Jews remains tense. Last month, the UCLA student senate condemned a campus visit by a freed Israeli hostage, drawing blowback from a university regent.
The post Trump administration again sues UCLA over antisemitism, alleging ‘hostile educational environment’ appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Jewish leaders say Belgium’s prosecution of circumcision is antisemitic
(JTA) — Dozens of European Jewish leaders, joined by Israeli and American diplomats, decried Antwerp prosecutors who plan to charge two Jewish men with performing illegal circumcisions.
In an open letter on Tuesday to European and Belgian officials, 45 communal and religious Jewish leaders accused the Antwerp Public Prosecutor’s Office of “effectively criminalizing the act of circumcision” and infringing on religious freedom.
Earlier this month, Belgian prosecutors announced their recommendation to refer two mohels, or ritual circumcisers, to the criminal court following investigations into alleged illegal circumcisions.
In Belgium, the law requires all circumcisions to be performed by licensed medical professionals. The two men would be charged with intentional assault or battery against minors and the unlawful practice of medicine.
The European Jewish leaders responded that prosecuting mohels was “antisemitic in nature, reminiscent of efforts taken in Europe against Jewish practice prior to the Second World War.”
They said the potential prosecutions sent a message that “Jews are no longer welcome in Belgium” and “Belgian Jews are now second class citizens with limited rights.” Their appeal was led by the chairman of the European Jewish Association, Rabbi Menachem Margolin.
Israeli and U.S. officials have also accused Belgium of targeting Jews for practicing their faith.
Gideon Saar, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs, called the prosecutors’ decision a “scarlet letter on Belgian society.” He was joined by the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, who said on X that Belgium “will be thought of now as anti Semitic by world.”
Belgium’s foreign minister fired back that it was “inappropriate to publicly criticize a country and tarnish its image simply because you disagree with judicial proceedings.”
“I recall that the proceedings in question were initiated by representatives of the Jewish community themselves,” said Maxime Prévot. “To portray those as a country’s desire to undermine the religious freedom of Jews is defamatory.”
The mohels were first investigated after complaints lodged by Moshe Aryeh Friedman, an Antwerp rabbi. He alleged in 2023 that six local mohels practiced metzitzah b’peh, in which the circumciser cleans the circumcision wound with oral suction. Over the past two decades, several infants in New York City were infected with herpes as a result of the practice.
The letter from European Jewish leaders did not address Friedman’s claims.
The post Jewish leaders say Belgium’s prosecution of circumcision is antisemitic appeared first on The Forward.