LUBICOM CEO Menachem Lubinsky is the founder and co-producer of Kosherfest, the annual trade event for the kosher food & beverage industry and is the editor-in-chief of KosherToday.

Eye on Kosher shares Lubinsky’s personal reflections on kosher-related topics and is released on alternating weeks with My Sixth Sense, which can be found at http://www.koshertoday.com

Kosher, But in Bad Taste

May 25, 2009

It was perhaps more than 4 decades ago when Sthumer’s Bread, a popular bread baker decided to court the Jewish market by launching a local television advertising blitz. They chose the first night of Passover to launch the ad campaign. There was cream cheese on a Seder table a decade or so later.

It seems that every couple of years someone misuses creativity for an ad campaign that is simply culturally insulting. In the 80’s a manufacturer of surimi fish called the product “It’s Not Shrimp!” to the chagrin of many kosher consumers.

This week, several days before Shavuos (“weeks”), the holiday celebrating the harvest and the deliverance of the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai some 3200 years ago, brought with it this year’s kosher ad in bad taste. The ad depicted a scene of Jews standing on Mt. Sinai but instead of the two Tablets at the peak stood two bottles of vodka imported from Russia, labeled the “Imperial Collection.” The Hebrew heading was “Naaseh Venishteh Omru Ke’echad” (“We will do and we will drink, they said as one”), instead of “we will do and we will listen, they said as one,” as the Torah describes the proclamation of the Jews standing at Sinai.

Several Jewish newspapers refused to accept an ad which seemed to be mocking the most revered moment in Jewish history. Once again creativity was turned into insensitivity. I sometimes wonder how creative people take the responsibility of being professional marketers, who should take cultural sensitivities into account. An ad that tinkers with the holiness of the deliverance of the Torah is not kosher to say the least. Some of the people I spoke to were equally appalled with the ad for promoting alcoholism on a family holiday.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am pretty excited that a quality vodka from Russia is kosher certified. I also love creativity that is in good taste. But trying to draw attention to your product that is insensitive is in my book simply not kosher.