The makers of Jewly Bandz, a Jewish-themed knockoff of those Silly Bandz things that kids today are into, are having to do some explaining after the Internet noticed that, along with recognizably Jewish icons like a menorah and a dreidel, there is also a dollar sign included in its Chanukah Set.
The company’s owner had this to say to the ladies of TheGloss, who originally broke the story:
The dollar sign in the set is there to symbolize the “Chanukah-Gelt” – which is an old Jewish tradition. During Chanukah Jewish children all over the world are given coins or chocolate coins (to symbolize the real coins). The Dollar sign in the set comes to remind us of that. By the way, they were created by Rabby Moshe Rabin. Maybe it is not the best choice, but this is what the manufacturer chose for that symbol (probably if he would have tried to show coins it would just be a round silly band – and that would defeat the purpose).
Has the Jewlybandz Website Been Hacked? [TheGloss.com]
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Wow.. Created by a Rabbi and people are having issues with it.. If people didn’t have anything to complain about, their worlds would collapse..
Just because one rabbi approves of it, everybody whose Jewish has to agree?
No, I guess you’re right. All Jews have to agree if The Hebrew Hammer approves, though.
No, of course not, but you also can’t claim racism if it’s Jewish vs Jewish.
You can’t claim racism in any religious conflict because they are based around religion not race. Bigotry and racism are not synonymous.
You can still say it was a poor choice even if it wasn’t motivated by bigotry.
Yeah. Yeah you can.
Not saying that’s the case here.
I’m Jewish and I got the reference to the Channukkah gelt right away. Doesn’t offend me at all and I think we’re SO hypersensitized to things that “may” offend people that we’re going to end up stripping all meaning from our cultural symbols. Just my two cents.
I’m not Jewish and I got the reference to Hannukkah gelt right away too. Really.
This is making a mountain out of something that’s not even a molehill.
Ditto, I understood the intent was to symbolize some kind of gifting tradition (i didn’t know the name). I did giggle a tiny bit, but I also couldn’t think of a better symbol to use.
I’m Jewish and I got the reference to the Channukkah gelt right away. Doesn’t offend me at all and I think we’re SO hypersensitized to things that “may” offend people that we’re going to end up stripping all meaning from our cultural symbols. Just my two cents.
Silly Rabbi…..
Silly Bandz are for kidz?
Whats the yellow Snork for?
do your own googling. I will give you this clue, it is an oil lamp
Did anyone hear a whooshing sound?
What’s the blue Gestappo badge for?
gestappo?!?!? Really!!!?? You just had to Godwin a post about Chanukah?
I thought you actually had to mention the word “Hitler” or “Nazi” for it to count as a Godwin. Can we get a definitive list?
There you go… damnit! lol…
No Godwin here. Just good-natured razzing.
OMG Snorks!! You crack me up Dopaz.
http://capslove.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/snorks1.jpg
Its a hand grenade.
It’s the oil jug. They only had enough for one night and it lasted for seven. That’s the miracle of Hannukah.
Well…that’s what we tell children is the miracle of Hanukkah.
http://www.stalker-game.com/img/content/cr_snork.jpg
It’s for your Hanukkah gelt. The money you get on Hanukkah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah_gelt
You could of course do just a round circle for the gold coins, but that wouldn’t be fun!
That was my first thought.
…which is exactly what the article said.
Then its just a yellow rubber band.
My 3 year-old nephew figured this one out on sight.
That made me smile from ear to ear. I now want a set, including the $ sign, police badge & jug.
Yeah, with the spade and the rake with the middle finger also!
Why is one of them not an outline of a Star of David?
Also why is the “Jewlybandz” logo so terrible?
The site only sells Jewish-themed bands. The Star of David is not specific to Hanukkah.
But money and candles are?
Yes.
That made me smile from ear to ear. I now want a set, including the $ sign, police badge & jug.
The oil jug I get, but what’s the shield for? I can’t think of any part of the Macabees of the temple story that involves a police shield.
Represents the illegal police actions of the German Reich?
Which has absolutely nothing to do with Hannukah? Good jump, but you missed.
It’s a dreidel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreidel
no the driedel is the red dreidel shaped object. we are wondering about the blue shield
The red one is a dreidel. What about the blue one?
They were warriors, though I think their shields would have been circular, which would be a pretty boring silly bandz
David’s shield.
David was the first temple BUILDER, I don’t think he was around for the fall of the second temple.
If they made a coin shaped band to represent a coin, well…it would just be a rubber band. I’m not even Jewish and I knew what they were going for. Strange that people clearly not involved in the religion would be the ones to jump all over it. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, or maybe people just think Jews are funny.
Wow. You totally raised my awareness. Maybe they should include this informative tidbit of info in the article.
What’s the deal with the shield?
Captain America was the first blonde Jew.
Um…his shield is round.
That’s his new shield. He had one that was shaped like that at one point.
http://alankistler.squarespace.com/journal/2007/12/18/kistlers-history-of-captain-america-part-1.html
Not his original shield during WWII. He got the round shield after being defrosted by the Avengers.
Probably has something to do with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_David
I’d be more concerned about the yellow hand grenade in the lower right corner.
DAMNIT! You beat me to it
It’s okay. It’s the holy hand grenade (of Antioch).
It’s true. An symbol for money is appropriate for Chanukah. The actual custom is to give the children money, not gifts. Gifts are a spillover from Christmas. The other icons are, a candle (obvious), a Chanukiah (menorah – obvious), a jug of oil (not a hand grenade), a dreidel (a top, to spin, to gamble with your Chanukah Gelt, and a shield (a symbol of militancy, not a police badge.)
Not just militancy by itself. Hanukkah is about a war the Jews fought and won.
Oy gevalt!!
Yeah, that’s a pretty reasonable explanation. I’m not sure that was a smart choice, but it clearly wasn’t a choice hostile to Judaism.
Still, its not hard to see how that will be taken so poor judgment even if its not a representation of prejudice.
Way to read past the headline people… We’ve already established that it’s supposed to be a gelt.
Isn’t the better question “where the heck did all this rubber bands as jewelery thing come from?” …
My boyfriend’s sister explained it to me.
They were originally for tanning – you put the shape on you and get a “tan line” in the shape of whatever. But somehow it got extrapolated into putting them on your wrist (which I don’t understand because that completely invalidates the fact that they’re in cool shapes)
I’d bet it’s how people carried them to and from the tanning salon or beach or wherever they were increasing their risk of melanoma. Toss them on your wrist and you won’t lose or forget them. You know, because as awful as it is to be lighter than the color of fried chicken, it’s even worse if you’re missing a pale outline of a heart around your navel.
So, it’s essentially a “tan tattoo”? That’s even worse than wearing them as bracelets.
I, for one, will be voting with my wallet and going to Ma & Pa!
As a Jew I approve of the dollar sign. We love money, so what…. If I were a rich man.
That’s hilarious.
There was a chart I saw yesterday that distributed weath among the different faiths of the usa. 48% of Jews in this study made over $100k annually.. higher than any other one faith. So um.. if that’s the case.
*shrug* I am jewish, and as I was explaining to my boyfriend earlier, I can’t recall any of the adults in my temple growing up that didn’t do something really ritzy like doctor, lawyer, etc. With few exceptions all seemed to be exceedingly well off (half million dollar houses, mercedes, etc)
Hi! Meet an exception!
(I know what you mean, though. Which makes it all the more fun to be the poor kids at shul. Librarians do not make fat stacks of cash.)
I would hypothesis that this is true do to the Clan nature of Judaism. Thus it creates a very tight group of people, the sense of community in the Jewish sphere is strong, so strong in fact that is lends itself to misinterpretation by outsiders. Thus the stereotypes and the Zionist creations that sprung about throughout the centuries.
Some of the occupational lumping is due to the bigotry even:
“Outliers,” for instance, offers a fascinating portrait of a group of eminent New York Jewish lawyers, all of whom were born around 1930. As Gladwell points out, this accident of birth date gave them several distinct advantages. Thanks to demographic shifts, they went to underpopulated public schools, where they received more attention from teachers. They were then able to get inexpensive college and legal educations. Barred from mainstream WASP firms, they were forced to specialize in proxy fights, an area of law that WASPs wouldn’t touch. This, in turn, gave them a huge competitive advantage 20 years later when hostile takeovers began to sweep across the corporate landscape.
– http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/11/17/gladwell
The sense of community amongst Jews especially the NY/NJ region is very strong. And like you suggest with people baring them from various fields.
Look at civil rights cases. Most were and are still headed up by strong Jewish Lawyers.
Hell the whole reason people think of Money when they think of Jews is because Catholics refused to handle loans way back when. Thus the greedy Jew stereotype was born.
Chris –
Did it make you feel old when you wrote “those Silly Bandz things that kids today are into…?” You’re now only a step away from yelling at the kids to get off your lawn. ;^)
Jewish Objectivists (Ayn Rand followers)?
according to the jewlybandz.com site itself, the shield is a “Maccabees Sheild” – being a non-Jew, i haven’t a clue what that is. FYI, the shapes included in the pkg are: “Menorah, Chanuka Gelt, Maccabees Sheild, Dreidel, Chanukah Candle, Jug of Oil.” this set is the only one that’s on backorder on the jewlybandz site, i suppose because of the dollar sign issue…
http://jewlybandz.com/
I’m sorry, but… ROFL.
where’s the mogen clamp silly band?
Just have the laugh and move on.
I suppose they could have used a circle to represent one of those gold foil wrapped coins, but I doubt anyone could have figured out what it was supposed to be.
Before I clicked on the article, I was gonna say – gelt.
I read the comments over on the Gloss site…the sheer number of accusations of anti-Semitism astound me. An analogue to a traditional religious symbol of a Jewish holiday, selected by a Rabbi, is anti-Jewish? Wow, really?
Though technically speaking, the State of Israel IS anti-Semitic (exactly what ethnicity do you suppose a native Palestinian is, exactly?)
Wow, not just one company but THREE sell Jewish themed band bracelets: (Jewly Bandz, Meshuga Bands and Jewish Silly Bands).
The fad has got to be peaking soon though. I expect they will do really well through Halloween, and as stocking stuffers (the non-Jewish ones anyway) during the holidays, but then the market will fall out and you’ll be seeing them by the case at Dollar Stores by spring. I also expect at least one major fast food chain to give them in kid meals before the fad fades.
Several people here have asked why they are so popular. As the parent of a couple of big silly band fans, I can attest that the main attraction is trading them. The kids all have a mental price list that values the different shapes and materials (glow-in-the-dark and Tie-Dye are the two most common variants from normal solid colors, but I have also seen red, white and blue) based on how hard they are get and whether you like that shape or not. It was the obsession with trading them that got them to be such a distraction that some school ‘banned’ them (no pun intended) – but that of course only made them that much more desirable, and got them national attention.
Some kids have even raised the bar and turned them into a real business. These two teens claim they will be able to pay for college with their earnings.
that’s nothing. check out the yellow hand grenade!
The shield is probably to symbolize the maccabee soldiers. I’m Jewish and I don’t really find this offensive, especially considering the explanation. Yes, we’re a hypersensitive, but damn if we’re not also still a heavily stereotyping, prejudging “us and them” society. Sadly.
I really wanted some, but the shipping costs more than the actual product.
I want the snork grenade.
I got it, I get it, and I laughed at it just the same. Stereotypes exist because people have eyes/ears and can observe others around them, and sometimes patterns emerge and groups get labled. Jewish comedians often make fun of this stereotype – are we getting so PC that non-Jewish people making comments about Jews/money will be looked at the same as non-blacks using the ‘n word’? I think it should have NOTHING to do about a word, which by itself is meaningless, and the INTENTION of the person using the word. That lady with the radio talk show, for eg., stepped away from a job she loved due to public pressure – SHE WAS MAKING A F***ING POINT ON HER SHOW WHEN SHE USED THE N WORD. And I AM sick of blacks using the n word freely, then making a big deal about it when others use it. ‘PC’ can go f*** itself. People ARE all different, yet ALL just the same. Deal with it, learn to love your neighbor as you love yourself (learn to LOVE YOURSELF first, people!! seriously!!) and do good to those who persecute you. Get 51% plus doing this and our shit world will turn into a utopia.