London – Amid a mountain of negative backlash that has been hounding the chain since a store manager in Holborn on Saturday emptied the store’s entire kosher food section, Sainsbury corporate offices issued an apology on Monday for any “inconvenience” or “offense” the act caused.
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The fiasco started when the Holborn store manager made the pro-active decision to strip the store’s kosher food section bare while anti-Israeli protesters were demonstrating outside the north London branch.
According to Sainsbury reps, the manager feared that demonstrators, as they have previously done in other protests, would enter the store and destroy products believed have been made in Israel.
Reps said the majority of the foods were chilled, and that the branch manager was only seeking to preserve the stock.
A Sainsbury shopper, Colin Appleby, subsequently posted a picture of empty shelves in the store’s kosher food section to his Facebook page, explaining that when he’d try to explain to a store employee that not all kosher food comes from Israel, the employee said only “We support Free Gaza” before walking away.
Instantly, Twitter exploded with tweets like “Racism outside the @Sainsburys store, racism inside the @sainsburys store, nothing but #EverydayAntisemitism involved in removal kosher food.”
Sainsbury’s apology statement on Monday said, We would like to apologize for any inconvenience or offence caused. The decision was taken in one store only to move these chilled products to cold storage elsewhere in that store for a short period on Saturday as a precautionary measure during a demonstration close by.”
Outrageous situation.New to the annals of virulent anti-Semitism.
No Jew should shop there ever again-even if they make the entire store kosher (which will never happen),We Jews have to convene a world-wide congress to reevaluate our position in Europe and elsewhere.
Not a big deal if the manager was seeking to defuse a potentially bad situation if the demonstrators outside the store were likely to come in and create havoc as they’ve done in other stores…more of a concern if this was a long-term decision. I fault the police for not quickly moving in and dispersing the demonstrators and creating a security cordon around the store.
Stamford Hill branch has also cleared all kosher & Israeli food out of its shelves. The manager was questioned and said “why are killing children in Gaza”?
England doesn’t have police? if demon starters remove food from shelves police should arrest them for shoplifting. this is pure anti antisemitism by the store employees.
England is infested with muslims and most of the British will always side with them simply because they’re more afraid of these militant muslims than Jews.
Pure anti-semitism.