Hobby Lobby is a Christian-owned $2.3 billion arts and crafts giant with 561 superstores in almost every state across the nation. As it turns out, they “forgot” to order Hanukkah merchandise. Of course, “forgot” is a kind word that really means, as one store employee reportedly told a Jewish customer, “We don’t cater to you people.â€
The news comes directly from a local New Jersey blogger, Ken Berwitz, who did some investigating and found a very consistent, possibly anti-Semitic culture both at his local store and in their corporate offices.
“In the past few days two different friends told my wife they had gone into the new Hobby Lobby store in Marlboro, New Jersey and noticed that, although there already was a lot of Christmas merchandise available, there was none for the Jewish holiday of Chanukah (some people drop the “C” and spell it Hannukah. Same holiday),” Berwitz wrote last week.
When one of our friends asked where the Chanukah goods were, was told there wouldn’t be any, and asked why. According to her, the answer was:
“We don’t cater to you people”
Understandably irate, she called the home office, and was told, indifferently, that hobby lobby doesn’t have Chanukah on its list of holidays.
Having heard this, and always wanting to be certain of what I write about, I just called the Marlboro hobby lobby and asked whether it would be stocking any Chanukah merchandise. I was told it would not. When I asked why, the answer – verbatim – was:
“Because Mr. Green is the owner of the company, he’s a Christian, and those are his values”
It doesn’t end there.
“Berwitz told Religion News Service that he then called Hobby Lobby’s corporate headquarters in Oklahoma City, and the company confirmed that it does not stock items for Hanukkah, and did not give a reason. When he asked whether the company carries Passover merchandise, he was again told no,” the Huffington Post reports:
“As someone with a great many Christian friends and acquaintances,†Berwitz wrote, “I can honestly say that I don’t know even one who would see the intentional exclusion of Jews as having anything to do with their religious beliefs.â€
It’s important to note that this is not an isolated incident in one store — a new store — but rather what appears to be corporate culture.
Hobby Lobby’s mission statement says they are committed to “[h]onoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles.”
Hobby Lobby is probably best-known for its current federal lawsuit against the Obama administration. In addition to claiming religious conscience objections to selling Chanukah goods, apparently, they also have a religious conscience objection to offering their 21,000 employees in 45 states access to birth control.
You see, Green thinks the Obama administration’s mandate to ensure all women have access to reproductive health care tramples on his religious liberty.
Draw your own conclusions.