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‘Yo Semite’ Shirt Makes a Comeback After Trump Mispronounces Yosemite National Park

Trump's verbal gaffe Aug. 4 unintentionally endorsed a pre-existing “Yo Semite” t-shirt, created 15 years ago by Bay Area educator Sarah Lefton.
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August 4, 2020
The Original “Yo Semite” shirt created by Sarah Lefton in 2004

It seems President Donald Trump doesn’t know how to pronounce Yosemite — one of America’s (and California’s) greatest national park treasures. He butchered the pronunciation after signing the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act on Aug. 4. The act will pay for repairs at national parks and permanently finance the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

In his verbal gaffe, he also unintentionally endorsed a pre-existing “Yo Semite” t-shirt, created 15 years ago by Bay Area Jewish educator and digital media consultant Sarah Lefton.

Lefton showcased the shirt — which features campfire wood lettering and two trees resembling Yosemite’s famous sequoias — on social media after Trump mispronounced the name of Yosemite twice, during a press conference.

“I was there first, Trump. Get em at judaicashop.net” Lefton posted on Twitter, linking to the National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH) in Philadelphia, Pa., one of a few locations where the shirts are still sold.

In 2004, the t-shirt — inspired by Lefton’s time at Jewish summer camp, and particularly in her role as marketing director for Camp Tawonga — launched her entrepreneurial fashion brand, Jewish Fashion Conspiracy, which also sold shirts with ironic Jewish phrases including  “Jews for Jeter,” “Geltdigger” and “Red Sea Moving Company.”

“Everything I ever needed to know I learned at Jewish summer camp,” Lefton told the Journal.

Sarah Lefton repping her ‘Yo Semite’ t-shirt in Yosemite in 2006. Photo courtesy of Sarah Lefton

From 2001-2005, Lefton worked at Camp Tawonga, a “beloved independent Jewish summer camp located at the Hetch Hetchy gate of Yosemite Park,” she said. “You spend a lot of time in the park when you’re at camp, and so did I, especially as a new Californian. Folks in the office would intentionally mispronounce the name of the camp, ‘I’m going up to YOsemite.’ One day, I heard it. [‘Yo Semite’] came out of my mouth and I thought it would be cool on a t-shirt.”

Sarah Lefton and her two kids repping their “Yo Semite” t-shirts. Photo courtesy of Lefton

Lefton made one for herself, and during an urban hike in her San Francisco neighborhood, she ran into two Jews wearing kippahs who advised her to make more.  As someone who “ordered clothes all the time” for Jewish summer camp use, she easily ordered a few dozen, put up a rudimentary website and decided to name it jewishfashionconspiracy.com.

“The internet was different 20 years ago,” Lefton reflected. After a mention on the [popular gossip website] Gawker, “there were hundreds of orders in a minute for items that didn’t exist,” she said. She gathered some friends and they began producing and shipping the shirts.

Lefton said that the success of her site eventually enabled her to leave her job and “focus on being a creative weirdo, which is what led to BimBam,” her educational technology company, which started its life at the now defunct G-dcast.com.

“Because I was working in the Jewish community and living on the internet, it came together for me,” she said. “What the Jewish outreach and educational universe needed was a fun, fresh internet presence, and it should be lighthearted animations about serious text.” After a few years of development, G-dcast.com launched in 2008 and was renamed in 2016. The company produced over 400 original videos representing more than 11 million views and 22 million minutes of watch time on YouTube before it was shuttered in April 2019.

“There was a moment when the ‘hipster Jewish thing’ was all the rage, and I was excited to join that club for a minute. Jewcy.com sold my shirts, and we all became friends, and I joined the fun Jewish league of nerds,” Lefton said.

Even after she shifted her energies to G-dcast, there were always a few shops selling ‘Yo Semite’ shirts, Leften said, including internet shops such as ModernTribe, and storefront locations like Berkeley’s Afikomen Judaica and the NMAJH in Philadelphia.

On Aug. 4, Lefton ordered a few hundred more shirts to be printed and shipped to the retailers, including Kristen Kreider, director of retail and visitor experience at NMAJH. Since COVID-19 forced the museum’s closure, Kreider told the Journal the online store has been doing “brisk online business.” While in a typical month the museum might sell a total of 15 shirts, by the morning of Aug. 5 over 500 shirts had been ordered, Kreider said, with new orders arriving every two to four minutes.

Lefton also revealed another past near-association with the current occupant of the White House: she had auditioned for—and was accepted into the second group of potential candidates—for NBC’s “The Apprentice,” which Trump hosted.

“It was because of this shirt,” Lefton said. “I thought it would be good for my apparel business. I’ll pitch myself as the Jewish character,” she said, sharing her plan to be an “edgy Jewish character” who wouldn’t report for filming on Shabbat “They liked me, but I got cut.”

You can order a “Yo Semite” shirt by visiting the Judaica Shop.

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