nonamerasian
01-27-2004, 09:53 PM
Urban Outfitters is in trouble again...
T-shirt that proclaims "Everyone loves a Jewish girl" is offensive and should be removed from Urban Outfitters store shelves, B'nai Brith Canada said yesterday.
The royal blue T-shirt at the centre of the controversy is adorned with tiny hearts, shopping bags and - to the chagrin of B'nai Brith Canada - dollar signs.
"The image is wholly inappropriate," said Joseph Ben-Ami, a spokesperson for the organization. "It obviously is an attempt to portray Jews as being obsessed with money. And we all know that that's a particular Jewish stereotype."
The T-shirt perpetuates the myth, he said, that Jews "are greedy. That the way to get a Jewish girl is to have money or if you want money you get involved with a Jewish girl."
B'nai Brith Canada called on Urban Outfitters, based in Philadelphia, to order its Canadian stores to stop selling the top. The organization denounced the garment following a complaint yesterday by a student who spotted it while shopping at the Montreal store on Ste. Catherine St..
The store also sells T-shirts with a similar slogan for German, Irish and Italian girls. The Everyone Loves an Irish Girl top is decorated with hearts and shamrocks. The Italian version features two slices of pizza surrounded by hearts while the German one includes two beer mugs.
This month, the Anti-Defamation League in the United States complained about the Jewish girl T-shirt to the company. The league claimed it "reinforced a negative association between Jews and money."
Richard Hayne, the president of Urban Outfitters Inc., said last night the company agreed to modify the design.
"We agreed to take the dollar signs off and just keep it as it is otherwise. And it will say 'Everyone loves a Jewish girl,'" Hayne said in a telephone interview from Philadelphia.
"Our agreement with them was that we would sell out what we have and that when we printed the new ones they would be different. That seemed to be acceptable to the people here and that's what we're doing."
Hayne did not know when the modified version would reach stores.
Ben-Ami criticized Hayne's response. "If it's not appropriate to continue to produce the offensive material, it's not appropriate to sell it," he said.
Bram Levinson, the assistant manager at the Montreal Urban Outfitters store, said staff have not received any complaints about the T-shirt.
The Jewish girl T-shirt, in particular, is selling well. "Literally I think we sold out of the first shipment within a week or two. Young girls come in here and just go crazy over them," he said.
"Most of the stuff we have here it's a very sort of tongue-in-cheek humour."
Hayne said the company has other T-shirts that allude to different nationalities and ethnic groups. "And we have very few complaints."
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/story.asp?id=C24B7CCD-DEE8-4BFD-B44E-093F6B7F292B
T-shirt that proclaims "Everyone loves a Jewish girl" is offensive and should be removed from Urban Outfitters store shelves, B'nai Brith Canada said yesterday.
The royal blue T-shirt at the centre of the controversy is adorned with tiny hearts, shopping bags and - to the chagrin of B'nai Brith Canada - dollar signs.
"The image is wholly inappropriate," said Joseph Ben-Ami, a spokesperson for the organization. "It obviously is an attempt to portray Jews as being obsessed with money. And we all know that that's a particular Jewish stereotype."
The T-shirt perpetuates the myth, he said, that Jews "are greedy. That the way to get a Jewish girl is to have money or if you want money you get involved with a Jewish girl."
B'nai Brith Canada called on Urban Outfitters, based in Philadelphia, to order its Canadian stores to stop selling the top. The organization denounced the garment following a complaint yesterday by a student who spotted it while shopping at the Montreal store on Ste. Catherine St..
The store also sells T-shirts with a similar slogan for German, Irish and Italian girls. The Everyone Loves an Irish Girl top is decorated with hearts and shamrocks. The Italian version features two slices of pizza surrounded by hearts while the German one includes two beer mugs.
This month, the Anti-Defamation League in the United States complained about the Jewish girl T-shirt to the company. The league claimed it "reinforced a negative association between Jews and money."
Richard Hayne, the president of Urban Outfitters Inc., said last night the company agreed to modify the design.
"We agreed to take the dollar signs off and just keep it as it is otherwise. And it will say 'Everyone loves a Jewish girl,'" Hayne said in a telephone interview from Philadelphia.
"Our agreement with them was that we would sell out what we have and that when we printed the new ones they would be different. That seemed to be acceptable to the people here and that's what we're doing."
Hayne did not know when the modified version would reach stores.
Ben-Ami criticized Hayne's response. "If it's not appropriate to continue to produce the offensive material, it's not appropriate to sell it," he said.
Bram Levinson, the assistant manager at the Montreal Urban Outfitters store, said staff have not received any complaints about the T-shirt.
The Jewish girl T-shirt, in particular, is selling well. "Literally I think we sold out of the first shipment within a week or two. Young girls come in here and just go crazy over them," he said.
"Most of the stuff we have here it's a very sort of tongue-in-cheek humour."
Hayne said the company has other T-shirts that allude to different nationalities and ethnic groups. "And we have very few complaints."
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/story.asp?id=C24B7CCD-DEE8-4BFD-B44E-093F6B7F292B