Davidai claims LEGO labelled 'Bring Them Home Now' figure a political symbol

Shai Davidai, an Israeli assistant professor at Columbia University’s business school, took his eight-year-old son to the LEGO store in Manhattan and wanted to design his own LEGO figure.

Davidai, an activist against antisemitism on campuses, asked that the LEGO figure have a black t-shirt with the yellow ribbon representing the hostages and the words "Bring Them Home" on it. At the store, to Davidai’s surprise, they refused his request on the grounds that it was a political symbol.

He recounted the experience in a post on social media and wrote that this event occurred in front of his eight-year-old son.

"There is an option to choose the characters and design them however you want while waiting for them to be printed," Davidai said, "Which legs, clothing, etc. That's the fun with LEGO."

'Political symbol'

"While we were doing that, the manager came up to us, and he must have recognized me because I was dressed exactly like the character I wanted to design," Davidai continued. "He said that they couldn’t accept what I ordered since it was a political symbol and it was against the company's policy. He gave me two alternatives: to change the design or get my money back," Davidai said, choosing the second option.

At the register, Davidai reminded the cashier that there are also children being held hostage in Gaza, who would otherwise be playing with LEGO if they were free, and added that "the LEGO company must do better."

Davidai immediately began to receive responses from his post from people who successfully printed LEGOs with the design of the hostage shirts in stores in Germany, Israel, and other countries, which pretty much nullifies the claims of the manager in New York regarding a blanket policy with the LEGO company.