I was doing the usual wandering around from site to site on the internet and I ended up at a website for a mall in Israel. And the website was prominently talking about its upcoming Black Friday sale.
Black Friday sales are a thing in Israel? Why? How? Black Friday sales are set on the day after Thanksgiving (which is an American holiday) to go out Christmas shopping (which I would imagine is not a huge event in Israel).
People do a lot of online shopping, and merchants have managed to turn Hanukkah into “Jewish Christmas” in the US, as far as it being a gift-giving holiday (when I was a kid, I got told “Hanukkah isn’t Christmas,” and got money, candy, and usually a small gift from my grandmother, but nothing from my parents; fast-forward, and my mother drops $500 on my son at Hanukkah).
I imagine if you found the store online, they do business online.
Whether Hanukkah is a big gift-giving holiday in Israel, I don’t know. I know that the gift-giving holiday in Judaism has traditionally been Purim, and that’s a pretty big holiday in Israel. We have some Israeli posters who can answer.
Hanukkah goes from Dec 12-20 this year, so it’s coming up.
I work in a store owned by Chassidic Jewish people in a town with a large Jewish population. We have all sorts of Chanukah items this time of year, and they sell. And the same people do buy toys and gift bags.
We are one of the few stores open Christmas Day, being outside our county’s (Christian) Blue Laws. From what I’ve observed working there the last four December 25th’s, that is a popular day for Jewish families to shop together and buy their children toys.
My Saudi friends are tracking Black Friday prices on Amazon and whatnot.
What does any of this have to do with the day after Thanksgiving in Israel?
There are a huge number of American expats in Israel so it’s not suprising that a lot of American traditions have leaked over, including Hanukkah becoming a more prominent gift giving holiday. It’s sort of a shame in a way.
I understand why Jews and Muslims follow Christian customs in America, where the population is mostly Christian. What I was wondering is why these customs are being followed in a place where there is no substantial local population to support them.
It’s not a Christian thing.
A few years ago, the concept of Black Friday became known in Israel for a much simpler reason : the rise of internet shopping.
In general,if you ask the average Israeli, nobody knows why it’s called Black Friday, and nobody knows why it occurs in November.
But a sale is a sale !
And if Amazon has good deals, then the whole world’s gonna pay attention. (See Paul’s post above about Saudi Arabia)
And since malls in general are suffering due to internet shopping, (though not nearly as badly in Israel as in America), Israeli malls have started to fight back for some of those Black Friday shoppers.
Also …a few details about Israeli holiday shopping:
Friday (any Friday, all year long) is the biggest shopping day of the week (like Saturday in the US, and for the same reason: it’s the first day of the weekend).
So announcing a special sale on a Friday is a natural thing for Israeli advertisers and easily-enticed consumers. It has nothing to do with Christmas or with Hannukah.
And Hannukah doesn’t compare to Christmas at all.
in Israel Hannukah is not a major shopping event, but it is a major family event: schools are closed for the entire week, causing parents to look ( desperately! 
) for anything to keep the kids occupied.
There are special theater performances for kids all over the place, and the shopping malls also set up stages with entertainers to draw in the kids (and their parents’ money) .
So there is an increase in retail sales, but it’s not a huge cultural thing like Christmas shopping.
I was in Romania on business in November a few years ago and there were ads all over for Black Friday sales. I asked my host: “You celebrate Thanksgiving in Romania?” He said: “We don’t know anything about Thanksgiving, but Black Friday sales are now a thing all over.” In other words they’ve been disassociated from the holiday outside North America.
ETA: the Internet sales thing mentioned above probably explains it.
No, I really think celebrating Christmas is a Christian thing. Granted, it spreads to people who aren’t Christians. But you need a bunch of Christians to get it started and make it popular enough to extend beyond Christians.
That said, I see the sense of your internet theory. Black Friday sales started in American stores; they then spread into online sales; online sales took them outside America; and then stores outside America followed the lead of the online sales. If we could just fit Japanese KFC’s into this, we’d have a Grand Unified Theory.
chappachula pretty much nailed it. The internet created an event, and people aren’t complaining because, you know, sales.
Outside of the United States. We don’t have a holiday at the end of November in Canada, though we do have Black Friday (it is relatively recent, though).
We have them in Pakistan as well. Here’s the largest online retailer’s advert for this years version.
No they don’t. But they do follow two universal custom, which are shopping for great deals and secondly, being taken for a ride by marketing asshats.
Black Friday, I suspect has grown due to online retailing, as well as the fact its conveniently occurring in the last week of November it starts just as the northern hemisphere winter is approaching, which means people will be already in buying mode.
I just noted, for the first time ever, Black Friday Sales for GB, on a tech site.
Not that I would go just to save money. No-one refuses a bargain, but outside those rare cases where retailers wildly over-price their goods ( which probably happens more in Britain than America ) the determination to only pay the minimum price, or far below it, is antithetic to the Christian Doctrine of the Just Price, and more can only lead to disaster for both manufactory and retail. Creating a permanent revolution of depression.
Black Friday has been ‘a thing’ for years in the UK. I mean, here’s an article from 2014 about Black Friday riots in Tesco. It was popping up online a couple of years before that as well.
I don’t really notice adverts.
It’s cultureal appropriation, I tells ya! They should be internet shamed! I demand outrage!
Right now in Colombia it’s not just Black Friday–it’s Black Week.
They’re a thing in Spain too, and due to some people not knowing the connection between Black Friday and Thanksgiving, some stores had them last Friday and others are having them next.
Belgium appears to be having them next Friday.
I see the Black Friday posters and ads every year here, and every year I shake my head. I doubt I could find even ten Sabras (native Israelis) who would be able to tell me what Black Friday is. As long as there’s a way to get people to part with their money, there will be ads for it. It doesn’t specifically have to do with Chanuka.
And honestly, the deals advertised here are not all that great to begin with.
Even though Canadian Thanksgiving is 45 days earlier than the US holiday, Black Friday is still a big thing in Canada. It is not a holiday of course, but does kick off the Christmas shopping season.
What I don’t understand is why the shopping season starts with a sale. I always though sales came at the end to clear the shelves for the next shopping event (Valentine’s I suppose).
