Nike’s ‘Never again’ slogan is a disgrace

Fifty-six thousand runners completing the London Marathon yesterday may well have gasped the words ‘never again’ as they staggered across the finish line. I have never been a runner, but I imagine that even those who willingly endure the 26.2-mile ordeal must feel not only a profound sense of accomplishment but also, at the very least, a fleeting pang of regret.

Yet when I saw the Nike advertisement – hoisted from a crane like an executed Iranian dissident, swaying precariously in front of that modern-day emblem of our capital city, the London Eye – bearing the slogan “Never again. Until next year,” my mind immediately traveled to darker places. What, I wondered, has a running race to do with the Holocaust?

Only last week, my essay commemorating Yom HaShoah, the Jewish Holocaust memorial day, was published in these pages. It focused entirely on the solemn imperative embodied in the promise of “never again,” especially at a moment when Jews worldwide feel increasingly imperilled by a new, unashamed surge of hatred and discrimination. I argued that “never again” cannot simply be reduced to a catchphrase; that remembering the Holocaust is not itself sufficient to fulfil the pledge; that to honour it fully, we must recognise and confront contemporary manifestations of Jew-hatred.

I described how the Holocaust has been gradually reframed in both political and public discourse –from an atrocity uniquely designed to exterminate the Jews, carried out with methodical, sadistic precision, to a generalised parable about “man’s inhumanity to man.” This recharacterisation unfolds even as I receive daily messages from Jews and non-Jews alike, sharing their anguish and urgent concern over the mounting tide of antisemitism worldwide.

For a moment, I questioned myself. Perhaps I was overreacting. After all, can any single historical catastrophe – or any one persecuted group – claim exclusive ownership over a phrase? Perhaps Nike’s marketing team didn’t even think of the Shoah. Perhaps the creatives who conceived the idea – seated high in their glass towers – simply did not think along those lines. Never. Again. Just two simple words. What else might a runner exclaim upon crossing the finish line to collect a medal and a time slip? Perhaps their managers, toasting another advertising triumph over boozy lunches, were equally oblivious. Perhaps the technician who programmed the screen, and the team that hoisted it skyward for all to see, were simply unaware of the phrase’s gravest historical weight.

But then I remembered how upset it made people when anyone veered too close to ‘black lives matter’ or other popular slogans of our day. My anger only deepened. How could they? How could a giant like Nike – and all the many people involved between conception and execution – fail to recognise the most solemn and famous usage of those words? Or worse, perhaps they did, and decided it did not matter.

It is difficult to extend them the benefit of the doubt. It would have taken just one set of discerning eyes, one solitary voice, one ‘sensitivity reader’ to raise a gentle objection. Did not a single Jew suggest that it might be inappropriate? Did not a single non-Jew, with a grasp of history or an awareness of today’s climate, flag it? If not, why not? Was this ignorance, carelessness, or a chilling indifference?

Either way, the result is insulting and profoundly distasteful. The finish line was not the only red line to be crossed that day. If, after only eighty years, the solemn vow of “never again” can be so cheapened – so easily forgotten that it has become a way to sell trainers to runners – then we Jews (and all of humanity) are really in grave peril.