So this lady goes to a dollar store and buys what she thinks is gift wrapping paper. Comes home and horrors! sees that the red and gold paper is covered with “swastikas”.The local press gets involved and the result is this.

(Image: from wesh.com)
Its pretty obvious that this was some cheap wrapping paper made in India or China and targeted to the Diwali gift market. Post -Diwali, the paper finds its way to the dollar store and creates a sensation. Not helping the situation is the Rabbi quoted in the article:

But Rabbi Rick Sherwin said even if the perceived swastika is a Hindu symbol, he feels it should not be used in our culture out of respect for the horrors the swastika is associated with.

“There should be sensitivity to the awful things that symbol represents,” he said. “The swastika has been outlawed in Germany.”

Personally, I think its time we reclaimed the swastika (the one with the dots and all). I do go out of my way to make sure that no religious icons I display have the symbol overtly in my neighbors faces but this incident is a bit much. Isn’t it time people broadened their horizons a little to recognize that the swastika (in the Hindu form ) is not the same as the horrible symbol of the unforgivable atrocities of the Holocaust?

What do you think?

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