Hobby Lobby Looking Into Anti-Hanukkah Bias
What About Us: Hobby Lobby already has Christmas-related promotions on its web site. But Jewish consumers say the crafts chain shuns Hanukkah merchandise. Image by getty images
Hobby Lobby, following a blog report that the chain did not stock Hanukkah merchandise, said it was evaluating its inventory and looking into an alleged anti-Jewish slur by one of its employees.
Ken Berwitz on his Hopelessly Partisan blog wrote over the weekend that a friend who asked about Hanukkah goods at the arts and crafts chain’s store in Marlboro, N.J., was told “We don’t cater to you people.”
Berwitz reported that he called the company’s home office in Oklahoma and was told that Hanukkah is not on the chain’s list of holidays and that it would not be stocking Hanukkah merchandise “(b)ecause Mr. Green is the owner of the company, he’s a Christian and those are his values.”
David Green, an evangelical pastor, according to Berwitz, owns the chain.
In a statement issued Monday on Entrepreneur.com, the chain said it “is currently working with our buyers over our merchandise selection. Due to multiple customer requests, we are currently evaluating our Holiday items and what we will carry in the future.
“Alleged comments made by employees are being investigated and will be addressed accordingly. These comments are in no way indicative of Hobby Lobby culture, the owners and the operators.”
The company is not required by law to sell Hanukkah or any other Jewish-related merchandise.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
