Amazon Includes Vulgar Note in Package to Jewish Customer

The customer, who ordered an IDF sweatshirt, said he’s “involved in the Jewish community and supports the defense of the Jewish state.”

By Ben Cohen, The Algemeiner

Alexander Gindin received a shock on Thursday night when he opened a package from Amazon and discovered a blunt handwritten note attached to the IDF hooded sweatshirt he’d ordered: “F**k your white supremacy nation.”

Born into a Jewish family from the Soviet Union who arrived in the US in 1990, Brooklyn resident Gindin told The Algemeiner on Friday that he is “someone who’s involved in the Jewish community and supports the defense of the Jewish state.”

He had purchased the $32.99 black hoodie embossed with the Hebrew name and six-pointed insignia of the Israel Defense Forces as a gesture of solidarity with the young Jewish man assaulted and insulted as a “dirty Jew” in Brooklyn last month for wearing the same sweatshirt, he explained.

Gindin said that he had immediately contacted Amazon after discovering the note with the offending message taped across the IDF insignia on the shirt.

An agent at Amazon’s customer service had been sympathetic, Gindin said, but was unsure of how to direct the call. He provided Gindin with a number for Amazon’s corporate office and suggested he call there. But when he called the corporate office, Gindin was told firmly that only customer service was able to assist him.

“I made it clear to the person at corporate that this was an antisemitic and racist matter, and she said, ‘I understand,’ but she kept repeating that this was a customer service issue,” Gindin said. “I expected Amazon’s corporate office to have more insight. When it comes to a matter of this nature, it’s very much a corporate issue. It’s not about a delivery delay or damage to a product, when you would call customer service.”

Loni Monroe, a spokesperson for Amazon, told The Algemeiner via email that company  “works hard to provide customers with a great experience and deeply regrets that this situation did not live up to our high standards.”

“Amazon does not tolerate any behavior deemed hateful, racist, or discriminatory,” she said. “This type of act is in conflict with our code of ethics and we will take immediate action once we complete our investigation of the situation.”

Since the Dec. 26 attack on Blake Zavadsky, the young Brooklyn man targeted for wearing the IDF sweatshirt, as well as his friend, Ilan Kaganovich, Jewish activists on social media have been wearing the same shirt as a mark of solidarity and encouraging others to do the same.