In a hilarious scene, Woody Allen’s character (Fielding Melish?  Miles Monroe?  Alvy Singer?) finds out to his great embarrassment that there is no right to privacy at a Manhattan kiosk.  The clerk yells out loud for all to hear the names of the magazines the schlemiel had just purchased, including the porn mag Screw.  What he planned to do with the rag once he got home is easy to guess.  Several Allen movies make jokes about this subject.

Not the least amusing was the news from on high in 1973 that a bunch of folks in black robes found that the right to privacy applied to abortion.  Indeed, they had claimed previously in 1965 that the right to privacy was “older than the Bill of Rights” (huh?) and that a ban on contraceptives would be “repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship,” from which it was inferred eight years later by a kind of magical thinking, unfamiliar to me as a logic professor, that the Constitution protects the right to abortion.  Well, abortion is a kind of contraception, or something like that, right?  Close enough for government work, I guess.

Magical thinking also persuaded one of the black robes President Trump put on the Supreme Court that the Constitution grants a right to same-sex “marriage.”  Who knew?  Two other black robes, also Trump nominees, used magical thinking to rule that States “had no standing” to question the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.  What other examples of magical thinking can be expected from people with such a weak grasp of elementary logic remains to be seen.  Why they have such awesome power in the first place is the conundrum of our Republic.

All this by way of preamble to the privacy customers can expect at Amazon.  I found out the hard way that when it comes to Jewish products, there is (apparently) no such right.  Here’s hoping Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is paying attention.

In the mood for some matzo the other week, I picked what seemed like a promising Amazon product made in Jerusalem, Israel by Yehuda Matzos.  I have Amazon Prime and got delivery a couple of days later.  Yay!  Below is a photo taken by the driver and sent to my email address as proof of delivery, which is standard Amazon practice.

Also standard practice at Amazon is for the company to ship products in a way that does not disclose their identity, realizing that customers (unlike at Alvy and company at some public kiosk) should have their privacy protected.  Books and dry goods generally are always shipped inside a box, sometimes even inside a box within a box to prevent damage.

Why not this time?

I wrote to the seller, K O L, via an Amazon link pointing out a problem.  In neighborhoods where there is hostility to Jews, which is increasingly the case in light of the war with Hamas, leaving out in the open a product identifiably Jewish might expose the recipient to reprisal by anti-Semites.  That is not a danger where I live, but the problem is very real nevertheless.  Merchants should keep it in mind and act accordingly.  Why did K O L fail to protect my privacy?

K O L was quick to respond:

Thank you for your order! This item was fulfilled by Amazon (meaning all the pick, pack and shipping aspects are done via Amazon in their warehouse by their employees), we as sellers have no control whatsoever on the shipping and handling of the order, only Amazon does. I therefore suggest that you reach out directly to them via amazon.com/callback and they will be able to better assist you. I'm sorry for making you take the extra step and I hope this gets resolved shortly.

Best Regards,

Customer Care,

K O L

Off I went to Amazon to get answers now that K O L was off the hook. It took a few minutes of back-and-forth with an online chat agent to reach the right complaint category and get whoever was at the other end to comprehend plain English.  Ah, the wonders of A.I. and public education!  No, the product is fine.  No, I’m not trying to return anything.  No, I don’t want a refund.  I repeated this several times.

After some prodding, I got the agent to understand there was a privacy problem with Amazon policy.  Despite undoubted commitment to DIE, Amazon apparently failed to recognize that allowing the identification of a product as Jewish these days might expose a customer to neighborhood reprisals by anti-Semites.  I had to use capitals (= shouting in the online world) to get it across that this was a very serious matter, needing immediate attention.

He/she/it/they/them signaled comprehension eventually.  I received assurance that my complaint would be passed up the line for review.  Whether this will translate into policy change remains to be seen.  I don’t expect a response letting me know.

I suppose I could order the same product again and find out in due course what’s what.  I’m in no hurry, however.  I’ll decide soon whether to continue Prime.

Arnold Cusmariu is the author of Logic for Kids and is currently hard at work on a book to be titled Escape from Plato’s Cave on issues at the intersection of philosophy, music, art, and film.

Image: ajay_suresh via Flickr (cropped), CC BY 2.0.