Israel – “I hit people upside the head, that’s my job,” joked Yitzhak Meir Ferster as he arranges the latest collection of hats on the display table.
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The head of “Ferster Quality Hats” reminisced about the days in which his forefathers – who founded the business in Warsaw in 1912 and brought it to Jerusalem – laid brimmed hats atop the heads of David Ben Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Zalman Shazar, and Menachem Begin.
Now, when brimmed and felt hats are the exclusive domain of Haredi men, Ferster proudly boasts of the many important rabbis and spiritual leaders who have donned the hats from generation to generation.
Ferster, though, is now trying to hit the Italian hat manufacturer Borsalino upside the head. Aside from the fact that it is a prestigious brand that has been providing headwear for the last 152 years to customers all over the world, it is also attempting to become the dominant player in the Jewish-Haredi market in Israel.
As part of a continuing legal battle, Ferster filed a NIS 5 million lawsuit in Tel Aviv District Court against Borsalino. This comes after dozens of years in which Ferster sold Borsalino brand hats alongside its own, popular manufactured models that went by the name “Brandolino.”
A few years ago, both companies found themselves embroiled in a dispute which led the Italian giant to cease offering its hats for sale through Israeli middlemen companies catering to the Haredi community.
Last year, Borsalino opened its own franchise shop in Jerusalem and another more recently in Bnei Brak. The row led both companies to file lawsuits and counter-lawsuits claiming failure to abide by the terms of their past agreements, financial damages, and other infractions.
The copious lawsuit provides a glimpse into the fierce competition for the heads of the Haredi male and the yeshiva student, a competition that generates tens of millions of dollars a year.
“The hat represents a basic and a very important element like no other within the Haredi public, since this public attaches the utmost importance not only to the quality of the hat that it wears but also to the most subtle nuances in its design and appearance,” Ferster’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
by the way there is no coincidence that the pesach edition of mishpacha had a large write up on borsalino.
i don’t know what the exact interpretation could be but it just seems too unlikely that these two stories come out at the same time.
Typical. what im reading between the lines, Borsalino wanted to open their own store, and Ferster got scared. Boohoooo
A narishkeit, not the lawsuit but the fact that the lawsuit states “this public attaches the utmost importance not only to the quality of the hat that it wears but also the most subtle nuances in its desgin and apperance” We are not recognized for our kindness, generosity or piety, just the importance we place on a hat! Perhaps if we would put as much effort into medos and menchlichkeit as we do in the “NUANCES” of a hat we could be better Yidden and more respectful to one another.
Perfect opportunity for the charedi community to engage in a profitable economic endeavor. Manifacturing hats.
1. establish charedi owned hat manifacturing company.
2. Employ only chareidi men and women.(separate buildings of course)
3. Get the rebbes to issue a ban on all non chareidi hats.
4. Get the Badatz to put a kashrus label on each hat.
5. Have an American affiliate (chareidi) import the hats to Boro Park.
6. Have them get an OU hashgacha and the approval of the BP rebbes.
7. Establish a hat police force patroling the streets of BP Flat Wlly Monsey etc and ticket anyone wearing a non approved hat.
Love your fellow Jew. Buy from your fellow Jew. Sell to your fellow Jew. Support your fellow Jew.
and force visnits to wear the bow on the left side of the hat and not on the right side like all others do
Ferster in BP hasnt sold the Bors in many years. Maybe we should all go back to those Stetsons?!
I hope this causes a drop in prices.
Prices can’t fall when the main player opens his own shop and has a mononpoly
To me the whole thing looks like FERSTER is simply looking for free press.At the expence of a huge chilull hashem by fighting the Italian co.
B”H I don’t wear a hat. It I did, it would be a white hat. Did you ever see all those cowboy moves? The good guys always wore white and the bad guys wore….
This whole Borsalino thing is reaching the point of idol worship. Some days it seems like everything is about the hat and not the brain the hat is covering. I admit that my hat for yom tov is a Borsalino.. I am guilty somewhat as well.
Instead of finding ways for bochurim to cheat the system and live off of the government, why not get a group of yeshivos together to start manufacturing hats? They are cheap to make, the bochurim can use the jobs, an the yeshivos could you use the money! Why do we bow down at the feet of Boraslino? Lets start making our own in a heimishe environment that can help balance Torah and parnoso! If the Amish can do it with mattress frames (box springs), why can’t we do it with hats?
The prices charged by the Monopoly of Borcalino is highway robbery.
Anyone manufacturing a hat equal to the quality of a Barcelino and having a reasonable price will become an instant millionair.
A Hat should not cost as much as a suite and neither should a pair of socks.
Barcalino has been bilking the frum community raising prices every few months only because there is no competition form any other hat which is just as good or much better than Barcalino.
The Market is very ripe now for anyone who will manufacture a better hat than Barcalino and sell it for less than a Baracalino.
Baseball hats meet all the halachic requirements, if there are any, and you can get them for 3 dollars.
Another alternative to this problem is to get the Israeli Charedi gedolim and the Boro Park Rebbes to issue a ban on wearing hats. They can declare that it is Minhag Hagoyim and that a Jew should be proud to wear a Kippah to publicly show his religion. This way the oylim would save a fortune and the Borselino folks would go down the toilet.
What’s wrong with wearing any other hat (Stetson, Brandolino, Roche…)?
If we all stick together and buy the other brands, then:
A. the prices will drop like a stone!
B. The jerk who insists on bucking the trend will be looked down on.
It CAN be done!
A ferster hat is nowhere near the quality of a borsalino.
This is the same crowd who don’t allow pictures of non-Kosher animals in kiddie drawing books, yet wear dead rabbits and beavers on their heads as a religion.
“Subtle nuances” are a complete and utter stupidity. Brim widths, hat heights, indents, bows, fuzz – all ridiculous! Don’t forget shtreimels and spudiks.
No one is forced to buy a Borsalino hat. You do because you want to wear something a little nicer. The prices that are charged by the frum stores in New York and Israel are much lower that what are charged by the Goyish stores in Manhattan and the rest of the world.