LivingSocial Apologizes for Jewish-Themed ‘Greed’ Room at Halloween ‘7 Sins’ Party

Image by thinkstock
The LivingSocial website apologized for a Halloween party it sponsored in Washington following a complaint that some of the decorations were anti-Semitic.
LivingSocial, which offers discount deals at area businesses throughout the country, decorated its “greed” room with dreidels and gold coins at its “7 Deadly Sins Halloween Party” on Oct. 26.
“We have looked into it and determined that the inclusion of dreidels with the other games in the gaming room was not a smart choice, and we are very sorry to have upset anyone,” said Kevin Nolan of LivingSocial’s publicity department. “Certainly this behavior does not reflect who we are as a company.”
Nolan said the customer who complained was “offered a full refund and explained that any offense was unintended” and was given an apology.
That customer, who did not want her name used, said, “I was very offended. I just thought it was completely inappropriate.” She said she considered the room’s decorations “clearly anti-Semitic.”
For $59, guests were invited to “indulge in a silent disco, movie screening” and fun in seven different rooms. Each room’s theme revolved around the seven deadly sins: lust, pride, wrath, gluttony, envy, sloth and greed.
The greed room was described as “a shimmering room full of silver and gold” in which people “get greedy challenging friends to a plethora of games.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
Opinion Marine Le Pen may be headed to prison — antisemitism and xenophobia still roam freely
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.