By Alex Benjamin, Vice-Chairman of the European Jewish Association
Last week our social media team shared an image from an obscure outlet I had never heard of. It was a picture of a sultry Bella Hadid advertising a brand-new Adidas sneaker re-issued to mark the Munich Olympics of 1972.
My first reaction was this is that someone made a bad joke, a fake image or a meme in poor taste. I wanted to see it from a reputable news source. So, they sent me another, then another, from more mainstream outlets.
I couldn’t believe it. Bella Hadid. The antisemite’s antisemite. The online propagator of hate against Israel. A person who said Israel is holding more hostages than Hamas. Adidas has her leading a campaign for a shoe, for an Olympics where 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists?
The next reaction after incredulity is anger. At the European Jewish Association we have sadly developed an expertise in dealing with examples such as this. Just the week before it was the turn of a former Polish Prime Minister who sought to whitewash Poland of any guilt and responsibility for the Holocaust.
But this felt different. It felt just too stupid, too beyond the realms to be deliberate.
Luckily, we have a good relationship with Adidas. Stretching back to the Kanye West saga, and us presenting them an award at a Holocaust remembrance event in the Czech Republic for the way they cut loose their multi-billion earning, but nonetheless antisemitic, golden goose.
So, we just picked up the phone to a senior figure in the company leadership to find out what was going on.
We almost felt embarrassed for them. The sense of absolute mortification in the voice, the apology, the inability to work out how it had happened.
It made me think of something a few years ago, also in Germany, where Customers who have KFC’s phone app installed received an alert urging them to commemorate Kristallnacht by treating themselves with extra cheese on their chicken burger.
Adidas, immediately upon recognising the error, immediately ‘revised’ the campaign. In short, nobody is expecting to see Bella Hadid promoting this shoe from now on.
We accepted the apology and said everyone should move on. Some people in the media have asked us how we could be so magnanimous about it, it was a very insensitive, deeply painful mistake to make to Jews, Israelis and large swathes of the general public.
A big company, that pays many of its executives top dollar, a German company to boot, with a Nazi past? Come on, the journalists opined.
The answer is a simple one. Everyone can make mistakes, even big companies. This was not like the former Polish Deputy Prime Minister who knew exactly what they were saying and doing.
Interestingly and ironically, Bella Hadid is feeling just as agrieved as the Jews and Israelis. Albeit for an entirely different reason. She is apparently suing Adidas for having put her in this position in the first place, being as she was, it seems, completely oblivious to the Munich Massacre.
All of this however points to a much bigger problem that the Adidas marketing department is guilty of, and that affects billions of people worldwide: a lack of appreciation and sensitivity towards history yes, but behind it all a lack of knowledge.
We tend to think that the link between the Munich Olympics of 1972 and the 11 murdered Israeli athletes is obvious to everyone. It clearly is not.
We tend to think that the history of the Holocaust is immutable. It clearly is not either.
There used to be a wide-gulf between ignorance and deliberate malice.
In these days of disinformation, of dumbing down and culture through soundbite that gulf is narrowing.
We hope that Adidas wil be more careful in future, that they will do some due diligence from here on in. For now, ignorance is the culprit.
But if it happens again, we won’t be so forgiving.