The menora wars [The Christmas Haters Attack Chanukah]

Jerusalem Post ^ | Dec. 20, 2004 | David Eliezrie

[Alouette]

On the third night of Hanukka, 11-year-old Menachem Felzenberg, decked out in a black hat and suit, lit the Hanukka menora in the White House.

Standing next to the president and first lady were his mother, brothers and sisters. He was chosen for the honor since his father is serving as a chaplain in Iraq. The leaders of the Jewish establishment filled the room.

For years, some of these leaders had battled menora lightings in public places. Now they were gathered in the most public space in the country watching as a young yeshiva student lit the menora in the presence of the president of the United States.

The Menora Wars have been a feature of Jewish life in the last few decades.

It was 25 years ago when the American Friends of Lubavitch sponsored the National Menora in front of the White House, despite Jewish opposition. Time and again a Chabad rabbi would put up a public menora at city hall, park or public square. Jewish community leaders would meet in consternation.

"It contravenes the principle of church and state," they would declare. At first the leadership would meet to try to appease the Chabad rabbi. The rabbi would argue that this was a great tool for outreach and that it would ignite Jewish pride.

In some communities this worked and community leaders agreed. In some cities they continued to pressure, but Chabad held firm. At times they would threaten: "Put up the menora and we will cut off your funding."

Others would tell him: "Go back to Brooklyn, you don't belong here."

Failing to change the rabbis, they would do as all good Americans do – sue. The lawyers of the American Jewish Congress, its cousin the American Jewish Committee, ADL, the ACLU, and even occasionally the Reform movement would march into court claiming to represent the community against public menoras.

When I put up a menora in the Orange County Civic Center, the American Jewish Congress dispatched a lawyer from Los Angeles to argue in court against the menora. I sat in the courtroom in shock as he said, "The Christmas tree can stay, but the menora must go."

At the time he won an injunction. Everything changed when the US Supreme Court ruled that menoras can be placed on public property as long as they are paid for with private funds.

So the menora returned.

This year, menoras were placed in hundreds of US communities. In a few, minor protests were heard, but each invariably failed.

The Tallahassee City Council, for example, refused to accept the pleas of local Jewish leaders to ban the menora, and the same was true in other communities across the country.

The claim that public menoras violate the separation of Church and State was just camouflage for a deeper issue.

As historian Charles Silberman described almost 20 years ago in his book A Certain People, the dominant attitude in modern Jewish life when he was growing up was, "Shhh, let's not make too much noise."

One might think this attitude had changed, given the strides American Jews have made since then; but its roots are evidently deep.

Two decades ago a young Chabad rabbi moved into a well-established southern community. On his first Hanukka he organized a menora lighting in the largest mall in town.

Summoned by the senior rabbi of the community for a meeting, he was accosted: "How could you put a menora in a public place?"

The young rabbi retorted that the mall was owned by a private corporation.

"You don't understand – the problem is that it is too public," the local rabbi replied.

The Jewish establishment wanted a quiet Jew, one who didn't draw too much attention to himself.

On the first day of Hanukka we had a spirited debate at a class in an Orange County, California law firm about this issue.

One retired lawyer, who had grown up in the depression, said, "Why put up the menora? You will wake up anti-Semitism." The rest, mostly younger, did not share his view.

It was this attitude of insecurity that Chabad wanted to shatter with its public menora campaign.

In his recent book American Judaism Brandeis professor Jonathan Sarna says that Lubavitch "promoted mass candle-lighting ceremonies in outdoor public places, flouting the beliefs of Jews who felt that religion should be confined to the private sphere, in the home or synagogue."

Of course there were true believers in the church-state issue.

Alan Dershowitz, a Jew who never hides his identity, told me when I congratulated him on lighting the menora in Harvard Yard: "It's private property. I'm still opposed to the menora on publicly-owned property."

Perhaps such attitudes are finally changing. Historian Arthur Hertzberg, who served as president of the American Jewish Congress, the group that was most persistent in its campaign against public menoras, told me: "We believed that a Jew should be a citizen on the street and a Jew in the home.

"The Rebbe believed that if you were a Jew on the street, then you would be a Jew in your home. "We were wrong, and he was right."

The writer is president of the Rabbinical Council of Orange County, California.

[anonymoussierra]

Thank you

[SauronOfMordor]

One retired lawyer, who had grown up in the depression, said, "Why put up the menora? You will wake up anti-Semitism."

The real reason: It will make it harder for my fellow ACLU lawyers to sue to stop Christmas symbols in public

[Mamzelle]

So go correct the past, already.

[lainde]

bttt