Nashville hat shop faces backlash for selling anti-vaccine Nazi Jewish star

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The shop in Nashville, Tennessee has been accused of anti-Semitism for promoting a yellow star with an anti-vaccine message

A hat shop in Nashville, Tennessee, has drawn condemnation and protests after it advertised an anti-vaccine yellow star like those forced on Jews by Nazi Germany.

The shop, Hatwrks, said in a now-deleted Instagram post that it was selling the patches for $5 (£3.50).

The shop was criticised online and targeted by protesters, who held a sign saying "no Nazis in Nashville".

A local rabbi said the star was an insult to Jews killed under the Nazis.

"Using the yellow star, or any holocaust imagery for anything, is a disservice to the memory of the six million Jews who were systematically murdered during the Holocaust," a local rabbi, Laurie Rice, told Nashville TV station WSMV.

In a later Instagram post, the shop apologised "for any insensitivity". It said it did not "intend to trivialise the Star of David or disrespect what happened to millions of people".

During the pandemic some conspiracy theorists have been denounced for making extreme comparisons between Covid-19 measures and the fascist policies of Nazi Germany.

This week Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was criticised for equating Covid mask mandates with Nazis forcing Jews to wear yellow stars.

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On Friday, Hatwrks shared on its Instagram account a photo announcing the arrival of yellow-star patches. It showed a woman, reportedly the business owner, wearing a yellow Star of David with the message "not vaccinated" on her black T-shirt.

An outcry followed on social media.

In a tweet, a former US ambassador to Nato, Ivo Daalder, said it was "grotesque to sell this evil symbol".

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On Saturday, the outrage online morphed into protests outside the shop.

Meanwhile, one hat company said it would stop selling its products through the shop "as a result of the offensive content and opinions shared by Hatwrks".

The BBC has reached out to Hatwrks for comment but it is yet to receive a reply.

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The six-pointed Star of David is a common symbol for Judaism, but the Nazis made wearing a yellow Star of David badge mandatory throughout territories they occupied, dehumanising Jews by marking them out as different.

Anyone found without one faced a fine, prison or death.

But during the pandemic, the yellow-star badge has been appropriated by Covid-19 sceptics, who have been seen wearing it at protests in the UK and Germany.

This month the city of Munich in Germany banned the use of Nazi-era Stars of David at coronavirus protests. A wider ban on the stars at Covid protests has been called for by Germany's anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein.

The use of the stars comes at a time of heightened concern over anti-Jewish attacks in the US and elsewhere.

On Friday, US President Joe Biden denounced a recent increase in anti-Semitic incidents, calling them "despicable, unconscionable, un-American".

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