On Hanukkah wrapping paper no less! ~ I would not use this wrapping paper, but I'm still debating whether this is a not-so-well hidden message or just an ignorant design error ~ ~ Sooz

Swastikas Found On Hanukkah Wrapping Paper
International Business Times
Zoe Mintz | 1 day ago


When Cheryl Shapiro visited the holiday aisle at her local Walgreens in Los Angeles over the weekend, she was shocked to spot Hanukkah wrapping paper with a geometric border design that had a swastika shape in it. Shopping with her grandson at the time, Shapiro alerted the store’s manager, who promptly removed the gift wrap, and at least one other Walgreens in the area has done the same.

"I told them I wanted this taken off the shelves immediately -- not just your store, but national," Shapiro, who is Jewish, told NBC LA. "I was really putting my foot down because I was appalled by this."


Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso said the company would remove the rolls from shelves. He did not provide an estimate on how many rolls of the wrapping paper the major drugstore chain sells.

"I saw it immediately. I think I have a good eye," Shapiro told KABC, adding that she called her rabbi when she returned home. “He couldn't believe it," Shapiro said. "I'm still very upset about it, that something like this could be on the market."

The swastika appears as a sacred or decorative element in various cultures, but the Nazis' use of it during the Holocaust makes it anathema to Jews.

While some are as outraged as Shapiro was about her discovery, others say she was overreacting.

“This is not a swastika. In art/design/history this is called a ‘meander’ and it was common in Ancient Greece,” redditor NotCohen wrote about the design. Redditor sRazors96 said the pattern “looks similar to the Golden Dawn's logo,” referring to the emblem of Greece’s far-right political party, which has been described as neo-Nazi.

This isn’t the first time swastikas have been spotted on holiday wrapping paper. In November 2009, an Orlando woman spotted the Nazi symbol on wrapping paper bought at a Dollar Mania store. At first, she did not notice the symbol, but then it struck her when she started wrapping her presents.

“I asked myself, is it really what I think it is? Am I making something out of nothing?” Casey Lehman told WESH 2 at the time. It turns out the pattern was an ancient Sanskrit symbol from Hinduism that means good luck. Still, not everyone will see it that way.

"If I had sent this out on my Christmas gifts and someone had pointed it out to me, I would have been mortified. I would have been really embarrassed," Lehman said.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/swastikas-found-on-hanukkah-wrapping-paper/ar-BBgvaKU

Seems to me it's like seeing Jesus on a piece of toast.

I am admittedly a non-observant Jew, but my eyes immediately saw the swastikas, oskar ~

Sooz

Of course they did. The photo deliberately focused on them.

You're not Jewish so it's not as horrid to you, oskar ~ but out of curiosity, what should a picture describing wrapping paper design focus on if not the design? ~

Sooz

You do realize that the "swastika" isn't German but is a symbol that goes back cebturies, if not millenia, and originated with the Indo-European people who migrated westward from what is now the India/Pakistan area?
I may be wrong, but I think it is also a Chinese writing character.

That information is noted in the op, oskar ~ but at least to this Jew, that does not lessen the kick-in-the-gut effect of using the symbol on Hanukkah wrapping paper ~ is that really difficult to understand?

Sooz

Not difficult to understand but that's an emotional reaction, not a rational one.

Fine, oskar ~ then I'm reacting emotionally, even tho my comments in the op stated "... I'm still debating whether this is a not-so-well hidden message or just an ignorant design error" ~

Sooz

Hopefully, just an ignorant design issue.

Better demolish this building, then. Should cost a few tens of millions to taxpayers.

Once I built a railing for a Jewish customer on her front porch matching a balcony railing she loved on a different house. While I was cutting the pieces I noticed that they formed a bunch of diagonal swastikas. As a good kraut I told her about it. She laughed it off.
Meanwhile the design was copied a few times on that block.

Probably made in China or Taiwan , so unintentional.

If it looks like a duck it probably is a duck-- looks like swastikas to me

I see Temple University, but the swastikas are clearly there.