The marketing campaign lands as situations going through Gazans after practically two years of battle are gaining consideration amongst Israelis in new methods.
(JTA) — Within the early days of the battle in Gaza, the Israeli girls’s style model Comme Il Faut launched a marketing campaign with outstanding fashions and feminine enterprise leaders drawing consideration to the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas.
This week, the model turned heads once more: with a social media marketing campaign protesting alleged hunger amongst civilians in Gaza.
Israeli cooks and restaurateurs maintain empty pots together with the caption “Resist hunger” in Hebrew, English and Arabic within the marketing campaign, which was posted to the model’s Instagram and Fb accounts. The marketing campaign has stirred controversy and condemnation amongst an Israeli public that’s each prepared to finish the battle in Gaza and torn over stories about grim situations for the Palestinians who reside there.
“We thought, due to what’s happening in Gaza and the starvation in Gaza, to do that picture shoot with folks from the meals business and cooks,” Romi Kaminer Goldfainer, the director ofComme Il Faut, mentioned in an interview. “We thought how troublesome it’s to speak about style throughout this time — it’s even tougher to speak about meals and wine [and] eating when there’s this horrible starvation, like in a single hour away from Tel Aviv.”
Kaminer Goldfainer, whose mom Sybil Goldfainer based the model in 1987, mentioned she was impressed after seeing an Israeli chef’s latest social media put up about struggling to advertise their enterprise amid stories of hunger in Gaza.
Palestinians run in the direction of airdropped help packages, in Deir Al-Balah, within the central Gaza Strip, August 19, 2025 (credit score: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed)
“We make garments for ladies, and we imagine that style can be a political factor, like meals, like something in tradition,” she mentioned.
The marketing campaign lands as situations going through Gazans after practically two years of battle are gaining consideration amongst Israelis in new methods. Israel has lengthy rejected claims of hunger within the enclave, however final month, a worldwide starvation monitoring group launched a report stating that components of Gaza meet its requirements for declaring a famine. Amid a world outcry and rising opposition among the many Israeli public to the battle, Israeli information organizations have begun reporting extra typically on the plight of Gazans and a few anti-war protesters have began incorporating the images of Gazans into their demonstrations.
Humanitarian help to Gaza
However some Israelis have rejected the expressions of concern, charging that they characterize giving help to an enemy and place the onus of accountability unfairly on Israel — criticism additionally leveled not too long ago at efforts by Diaspora Jews to blunt the privations of battle on Gazans.
Such sentiments exploded within the feedback of Comme Il Faut’s Instagram posts.
“Inform it to Hamas. The meals is at their place,” wrote one person. One other posted, “The one ones who’re ravenous are our kidnapped. Disgrace of a marketing campaign.”
Kaminer Goldfainer mentioned the expectation of such a response deterred some potential members within the marketing campaign.
“Individuals are very afraid for his or her companies and for talking up,” she mentioned. She mentioned Comme Il Faut had reached out to nearly 100 Israeli cooks and restauranteurs to see if they might take part within the marketing campaign, however many mentioned no or didn’t reply to their inquiry. Others cancelled after initially saying sure for worry of the backlash.
In the long run, the marketing campaign featured a dozen Israeli cooks and restauranteurs, together with Michal Levit, a meals tradition researcher; Tamar Cohen Tzedek, the chef and proprietor of the restaurant Cucina Hess 4; Avivit Priel Avichai, the chef and proprietor of Ouzeria restaurant; and Aviram Katz, the restauranteur behind HaBasta, Mifgash Rambam and Morris Bar.
Within the caption of a few of the posts, the cooks wrote in Hebrew, English and Arabic that they “can not keep silent within the face of the systematic hunger of the folks of Gaza and the hostages amongst them.”
“Our stomachs flip. From its depths, from the abysses of the soul, we cry out towards the hunger of tens of millions of harmless folks and kids, who’re perishing and dying en masse,” the captions continued.
Comme Il Faut additionally collaborated with Dad and mom In opposition to Youngster Detention, an Israeli group that raises consciousness concerning the mass detention of Palestinian youngsters, on the marketing campaign.
“Our protest towards starvation is a protest on behalf of the youngsters and women, who haven’t any voice within the public sphere. For us this isn’t a political query however a primary ethical accountability — no boy and woman ought to starve,” PACD wrote in an Instagram put up of the marketing campaign.
“The voices that come up from the meals group, from folks and ladies whose lives are dedicated to meals and filling, echo our name: you will need to not adjust to the fact of empty pots,” the put up continued. “We’ll proceed to combat — till the pots are full.”
