IKEA Israel has issued an apology after coming under fire for releasing a product catalog intended exclusively for the chareidi community, a catalog that is void of photos of women. IKEA currently maintains three stores in Israel.
IKEA spokeswoman Josefin Thorell said “is not something that has gone through us”, referring to the decision to create the unique catalog, that has women’s rights organizations more than a bit upset.
She told Swedish news that this is not what IKEA is about and the move was simply and error, part of an effort to target a specific Israeli population group.
According to the Ynet report, IKEA simply realized the buying power of the chareidi tzibur so it redesigned an exclusive catalog in the hope of achieving entry into this growing community.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
20 Responses
If this would have been for the muslim community however, Ikea would be praised for understanding the unique needs of muslim women.
There is nothing about this catalog that negates women’s rights, or dignity. It can be said, that women’s dignity is only increased by such a catalog. Those complaints are only noise the women?s rights organizations feel compelled to make to attract attention, but there is no merit to them.
They knew exactly what they were doing. It’s the protesters who don’t know about the REAL kavod of a bas melech. And that’s being kind…
How ridiculous to apologize for showing respect for community values.
It’s pretty funny that this news site ran the same story twice.
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/527580/ikea-apologizes-for-catalog-aimed-at-ultra-orthodox-jews.html
I dont know of many of our kind that even buy their furniture. Es hut nisht kein yiddisher taam.
Can someone explain to me what the fuss is all about? IKEA obviously want to do more business in the frum community and have used a bit of foresight in not publishing a catalogue which would offend potential customers. The frum community are big potential customers. Just look at the numbers visiting the Rishon Letzion store and eating in the Mehadrin restaurant!
This is a Kiddush Hashem. Why are they apologizing?
Political correctness gone mad. Why shouldn’t IKEA make a catalog for particular customers. It is nothing short of common sense and derech eretz.? Well done for good customer service
So ludicrous! IKEA wants to increase its customer base and make inroads into the chareidi community so they put out a catalog that the said community’s men – and women – will feel comfortable looking at. Why should secular women be insulted? Not objectifying other women in order to promote sales is degrading to them?! Why is anyone giving them any attention, aside from ridiculing their skewed stance?
#7 – furniture is furniture. You can buy shelves, seforim shranks, dining room sets and couches in IKEA’s branches, in in Talpiot or in Lakewood, NJ. Who’s to say which store has more Yiddishe ta’am? Many of “our kind” have made purchases there, including my very yeshivish son-in-law and daughter, Rosh-Chabura nephew, etc. A visit to one of the branches was included in the itinerary of a very frum Bais Yaakov school’s class trip as an on-the-way-home stopover. Let’s keep our frumkeit where it needs to be – adhering to halacha and perfecting our middos. Whether or not one should shop at IKEA if one has a car (or a car ride there and back) is not a “frum” issue or at least it shouldn’t be.
IKEA did their market research and they were right for designing a catalog in that manner.
#7 They sell lots of stuff besides furniture and not all furniture “hut nisht kein yiddisher taam”.
If IKEA will change their policy to please the anti-Semites out there, hope chareidim will boycott them.
As a woman, I am very offended by their apology. I think the fact that they are apologizing is offensive to women.
Just who complained about the catalog? I really doubt it was Hareidi women who complained. That means whoever complained are really saying implicitly is that the Hareidi women cannot take care of themselves (or don’t know what is good for them) so the complainers will take over the Haredi women’s lives in the name of women’s rights.
Did anyone even entertain the possibility that the Hareidi women who are the ones who do not want their men to be looking at pictures of other women?
I took only a very quick glance at the catalog. Based on my memory (correct me if I’m wrong) the whole catalog was only furniture, with a total of 3-5 furniture photos that included frum Jews. If there were 50 or 100 pictures, I could understand someone making an issue of seeing no women at all (and I’m not taking sides in that sticky debate), but in this case it seems like someone got all worked up over nothing.
It is not clear to me from this story, as published, who issued the catalog and who apologized for it.
It is possible that IKEA Israel is independent of IKEA the Swedish manufacturer, and that Ikea Israel prepared the catalog for the Israel market only. It is further possible that the women’s groups who objected aimed their objections at Ikea Sweden, who inartfully explained Ikea Sweden did not produce that catalog.
YWN should consider rewriting the story.
The non religious people in Israel complained and IKEA apologized.
See attached.
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/ikea-israel-slammed-for-pandering-and-misogynistic-male-only-catalog/
Many stores have different catalogs for different sects of society, that’s the beauty of marketing and publicity.
apology for nonsense I no longer will buy anything from them