Buying a tallit in the "Occupied" West Bank?

Posted by Ben G. on 12th Sep 2017

Today we received an inquiry from a tallit buyer in Portugal, who ran into some complications trying to place an order. Then at the end of his inquiry he wrote:

P.S. When we are asked to chose our country on a list on your website, it shows a "country" named "Palestine (Occupied Territory)". That country does not exist, and Judea and Samaria are part of Israel.

There's not much we can do about the "Palestine" option listed. Our store is built on a software platform called BigCommerce. I have a feeling many of their staff are left-leaning and would be unlikely to take seriously a request to change that.

And I doubt they even created that option to begin with. I have a feeling software companies don't sit down and enter 200+ countries manually, but use lists already generated by who-knows-who. 

It could be worse. If certain UN organizations had their way, the Old City of Jerusalem would be considered "occupied," and next would be all of Jerusalem, including Har Nof, Bayit Vegan, etc.

Our offices are located in Modi'in Illit, which some people would call the "Occupied West Bank," not Israel. In fact, I wrote an article on a related subject a few months ago.