Despite protest, store sells out of ‘Jewish’ T-shirts

MONTREAL — A controversy over a T-shirt with the phrase “Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl” surrounded by dollar signs, hearts and handbags appears to have helped the store sell off its stock, reports the Canadian Jewish News.

Urban Outfitters, a downtown clothing store, reports it was inundated with calls about the shirt after the Montreal Gazette ran a story on a complaint from B’nai B’rith Canada regarding the garment.

The store, however, said the inquiries weren’t from outraged members of the Jewish community, but what appeared to be Jewish teenage girls demanding the shirts. A week after the Gazette story ran, the outlet had sold out of its stock.

B’nai B’rith had called on the company to immediately pull the shirts off its shelves after the advocacy group received a complaint.

The Philadelphia-based Urban Outfitters chain repeated a promise it had made last month to the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to pull the T-shirt from its shelves, but only after selling off the line.

The chain had agreed to produce a modified version of the shirt without the dollar signs after the complaint from the ADL, which said it “reinforced a negative association between Jews and money and, as such, perpetuated an offensive stereotype.”