H&M is at it again — they’ve made a scarf that looks remarkably like a tallit, or Jewish prayer shawl.
Racked is reporting that the fast-fashion retailer is currently hawking a beige scarf with black stripes on its website for $17.99. “H&M even incorporated its own version of tzitzit, the knotted fringe you’ll find on every tallit,” the story notes.
The Stockholm-based chain also has a matching fringed poncho for $34.99.
This isn’t H&M’s first foray into prayer-shawl chic: In 2011, they issued a similarly-styled women’s poncho. (Three years later, the brand was accused of anti-Semitism when it issued a tank top with a skull superimposed atop a Star of David.)
H&M is hardly the only major fashion retailer to wade into Jewish (or anti-Semitic) territory. Notably, in the summer of 2014, the Spain-based chain Zara sold a children’s striped “sheriff” T-shirt that looked alarmingly like a concentration-camp uniform, complete with a six-pointed yellow star on the left breast.
Amidst a social media firestorm, the brand apologized and pulled the item from stores.
“Fashion changes, but style endures,” Coco Chanel famously once said. Clearly, observant Jews were onto something: In July 2015, Old Navy sold a Women’s Handkerchief-Hem Open-Front Cardigan that strongly resembled a prayer shawl.
