For Christmas of 1991, the Hungarian-born designer and art director Tibor Kalman sent a unique gift to all his wealthiest clients in New York: a cardboard box of food, identical to that given to the city’s needy.
The box contained a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, a container of juice, and slices of desiccated cake, with a note that said: ‘The menu which is distributed to homeless people at Grand Central Station.’ Beneath that was a $20 bill and an envelope addressed to the Coalition for the Homeless.
Kalman’s conscience bomb to his clients (“they have everything,” he used to say) came to mind today when the UN reported that nearly half of the families in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have difficulty obtaining enough food to sustain a healthy, active lifestyle.
Where is Kalman, who edited Bennetton’s “Colors” magazine and even exhibited his works in Tel Aviv at the start of the decade, when you really need him? If Israel’s advertising sector had a Kalman, on Passover he’d bly send his wealthy clients (and maybe some top army officers too) emergency rations identical to the ones UNRA is handing out in Gaza.
It remains to be seen if there’s anyone in Israel’s marketing and advertising sphere who will rise and brandish the flag of politicization, that Kalman first waved.