It’s a shame when somebody throws away a perfectly good Jewish star.
Confusingly enough, that’s what a graphic emblazoned on sanitary napkin disposal units seems to represent.
For the portion of the population that doesn’t utilize women’s restrooms, the disposal units are often found within individual toilet stalls. And for those who never examined the units, they are often equipped with a graphic of a hand tossing trash into a wastepaper basket to explain their purpose.
The Anti-Defamation League recently received a call from a woman who had used the facilities at Cal State East Bay’s Concord campus, and reported that the hand-throwing-trash graphic eerily resembled a Magen David being junked. And, it’s not so far-fetched a claim.
“We’ve gotten other calls on the same issues before about different bathrooms. I’ve seen them in the ladies’ rooms as well,” said Tami Holzman, the ADL’s regional assistant director.
Letters were sent to the two companies that provided washroom facilities for the CSU East Bay campus: Los Angeles-based washroom accessory provider Bobrick and Wisconsin’s Bradley company. And it turns out the Star of David on the sanitary napkin disposal unit has a longer history than you might think.
Alan Gettelman, Bobrick’s director of marketing, confirmed that a device featuring a star-like symbol was designed and created by his company in 1977.
In 1987, however, members of a medical center in Palm Springs complained about the star and Bobrick switched the graphic to more closely resemble a hand throwing a tissue in the garbage.
“You could interpret it as a star. It’s a very amazing coincidence. [But] the ownership of this company since 1946 has been a Jewish family, so [discomfort over the image] is not something we’re blind to,” he said.
Considering Bobrick discontinued the star image 18 years ago, the units at Cal State East Bay are either close to 20 years old or made by a different company. Gettelman awards a “gold star” to any maintenance staff that could stretch a product’s lifespan that far in a washroom environment, but adds that any building manager who contacts him regarding star images — even if the units weren’t produced by Bobrick — will be mailed unoffending stickers to place over the stars, free of charge. That is what happened at CSU East Bay.
Bradley officials, meanwhile, claim their design, which has not been altered since 1984, does not recall a Star of David. Furthermore, they claim the units at CSU East Bay were not theirs.