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Australia’s Kmart retail chain on Wednesday was forced to remove a Christmas bag bearing the inscription “Merry Ham-Mas” from sale after the item attracted criticism from a Jewish group.
The colorful drawstring bag, which can be used to store a Christmas ham in a refrigerator, could no longer be ordered on Kmart’s website as of Thursday morning.
“We got it wrong on this occasion, and we apologise unreservedly,” a Kmart spokesperson said in a written statement to POLITICO on Thursday.
“When designing this product we clearly didn’t think through all the implications and the product has been removed from sale,” the spokesperson added.
Launched just a few weeks after the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ violent attacks which killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, the Christmas bag sparked public outcry after the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) asked for the product to be pulled.
“Although this is potentially funny (the AJA committee has tossed around some non-PC jokes) it’s really not a good look,” the group wrote Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter.
“We suspect some product manager may cause the company some embarrassment,” the AJA said, adding it had asked for the bag to be removed from sale.
About an hour later, the Jewish rights group published an update, saying it had been contacted by “senior management” from Kmart announcing that the bag was “being pulled out from the website and all stores.”
While Turkey is often the centerpiece on the Christmas table in colder parts of the world, ham is a common staple of the Australian holiday feast (traditionally celebrated over lunch on December 25).
