Delicious for Hanukkah

Balducci’s, a gourmet market in New York’s Greenwich Village, accidentally found itself in an embarrassing situation. Sometime over the weekend a store clerk mistakenly put a sign over a set of hams describing them as “Delicious for Hanukkah.”

Manhattan novelist Nancy Kay Shapiro, a self-professed unobservant Jew, noticed the advertisement of trafe – unclean, forbidden foods – for Chanukah. Instead of being offended, Ms. Shapiro took photographs and posted them on the web.

Chanukah hams - trafe for the holidays

I just thought it was funny, I wasn’t offended in any way. I just thought, here’s somebody who knows nothing about what Jews eat.

Nancy Shapiro
Author of What Love Means To You People

 

When Ms. Shapiro returned to the store on Tuesday, the first night of Chanukah, the signs had vanished. A manager at the Balducci’s gourmet grocery store apologetically said that the sign had been a mistake and blamed it on a stock clerk.

Thank you, Ms. Shapiro! Where many people would have been grossly offended, you showed good humor and tolerance for other’ ignorance and fallibility.

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