According to market researcher StoreNext, Angel Bakery’s sales have plummeted since the Haredi boycott against it began in early May. Its cake sales went down 29%, even though the company claimed its Haredi consumers only consume price-controlled bread and suggested it came out ahead as a result of the boycott because it was losing on selling its bread to Haredim. Bread sales went down “only” 13.5%, and buns 14.5%.
In early May, former Internal Security Minister Omer Barlev, the new chairman of the board of directors of Angel’s Bakery, led a protest outside the home of the late Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, which outraged the Haredi community. The Haredim demanded that Barlev either apologize or be fired.
On June 4, Barlev and Yaron Angel, one of the owners of Angel’s Baker, came to the shiva at Rabbi Edelstein’s home in Bnei Brak and submitted two letters of apology.
Now, in a weekend interview with Ynet, Barlev claimed the reason for the Shiva call was not economics. “The whole story is really not about economics,” Barlev said. “Obviously, orders were canceled, but what worried us was that people would start being fired from all kinds of places and centers of the bakery. So, people who support families would be fired because of this matter? That’s all I needed.”
A Tzadik.
Barlev then denied that he apologized, even though he left a clear letter of apology at the Rabbi’s house: “I don’t see it as a letter of apology. You can give headlines from now until next Tuesday, but this was not a letter of apology,” he insisted.
Funny. Because the video (see above) indicates, and the letter (see below) clearly includes a whole paragraph of an apology: “Had I been aware in advance of the situation we found ourselves in and the hurt feelings, I would certainly have avoided it – and for that, I express my regret and apologize from the bottom of my heart.”
His bosses were not happy with Barlev’s distortion of well-document recent history. On Thursday, Yaron Angel issued a statement saying, “Omer Barlev is a private and political person and the interview is personal and we are not a party to the interview and what was said in it. Angel Bakery has apologized from the bottom of its heart and in a clear and open manner, an apology that is not ambiguous. This is a fact and we stand behind it.”
Omer Barlev has had an unusual relationship with historic facts. As Internal Security Minister, after the 2022 terror attack in Beersheva, Barlev spoke at the funeral of one of the victims and promised the terrorist would end up in jail sooner or later. The thing is, the terrorist had already been shot dead during the attack.
