Posted on 12/11/2006 8:14:08 AM PST by beaversmom
There’s an outrageous story out of Seattle (my home base) that shows the way that good intentions can occasionally produce disgusting results. Because of the prevailing climate of political correctness, a decent guy and honorable clergyman looks like a horse’s rear end and has provoked appropriate indignation from millions of people.
According to misleading news stories featured prominently in newspapers and on TV (including KING 5 TV News): “All 15 Christmas trees inside the main terminal at Sea Tac Airport (Seattle-Tacoma International) have been removed in response to a complaint by a rabbi. A rabbi wanted to install an eight-foot menorah and have a public lighting ceremony. He threatened to sue if the menorah wasn’t put up and gave a two day deadline to remove the trees.”
Who is this wretched rabbi who, apparently, wanted to spoil the holiday joy of his Christian neighbors out of pique and selfishness simply because he didn’t get the right to erect his own Hanukah display?
As a matter of fact, I know and like Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky, the now notorious clergyman at the center of this swirling controversy. He’s a good guy, a young father of five (including new-born twins), and the son-in-law of the wonderful Rabbi at the synagogue I attend each week. I know that Rabbi Bogomilsky harbors no animus whatever toward Christians or Christmas. In fact he told the Seattle Times that he felt “appalled” by the airport’s decision to remove all its Christmas trees without warning on Saturday night. According to Rabbi Bogomilsky, “Everyone should have their spirit of the holiday. For many people the trees are the spirit of the holidays, and adding a menorah adds light to the season.” According to the rabbi’s lawyer, Harvey Grad, “They’ve darkened the hall rather than turning the lights up.”
I spoke to Rabbi Bogomilsky less than a hour ago and he may join me on my radio show tomorrow to apologize to the community at large for the totally unintended consequences of his desire to include a large menorah along with the airport’s holiday decorations (according to various stories there were either 22, or 15, or 9 different Christmas trees before the airport cleared them away in the dead of night). When I asked the rabbi directly whether he would want the trees removed if the airport refused to put up his menorah he insisted, “Absolutely not.” He has no problem with the Christmas trees, which have brought seasonal joy to the airport (and provoked no complaints) for more than a decade. He would greatly prefer that the airport restore the trees – even if they fail to include the requested menorah alongside the seasonal greenery. In fact, another local rabbi and close personal friend, Daniel Lapin, has begun soliciting Jewish signatures on a petition to demand the return of the trees – and we will gladly recruit Jewish volunteers to provide free labor if that would help get the job done.
Those of us who are comfortable and secure in our own religiosity (which would surely include the rigorously observant Rabbi Bogomilsky) don’t feel threatened by public displays of faith by our Christian neighbors. Generally, it’s secular fanatics (of both Jewish and Christian background), militant separationists, who have waged war on Christmas trees, ten commandments monuments, crosses, and other benign symbols of the nation’s religious heritage.
So what went wrong with this whole miserable affair?
After two months of indecision from the Port of Seattle (the quasi-governmental agency that runs the airport) concerning the request for a menorah, the rabbi’s lawyer made the mistake (yes, it was a mistake) of threatening a federal lawsuit and the airport people panicked and ordered the removal of the trees. “We’re not in the business of offending anyone and we’re not eager to get into a federal lawsuit with anyone,” said Craig Watson, chief lawyer for the Port of Seattle. Patricia Davis, head of the Port Commission said, “We didn’t have other cultures represented and rather than scramble around to find representations of other cultures at this late date, we decided to take them down and consider it later.”
This is ridiculous, of course. “Other cultures” do not observe popular holidays at precisely this time (the Islamic month of Ramadan is over) and in thousands of public and private locations across the country the abundant, prominent and very beautiful Christmas decorations are harmlessly complemented (if hardly balanced) by menorahs.
Of course, in the current climate of hyper-sensitivity regarding public expressions of religious commitment, Rabbi Bogomilsky and Harvey Grad should have avoided the chilling, unnecessary phrase “law suit” at all costs --- even if the Port of Seattle refused to give them a timely answer on their menorah request. As a result of the threatened litigation, the whole world is witnessing a horrible situation in which the religious enthusiasm (however well intended) of one individual has led to the removal of decorations enjoyed by literally hundreds of thousands.
In addition to apologizing to those masses, and working conscientiously to restore the Christmas trees, I hope that Rabbi Bogomilsky and his colleagues in the sincere and warm-hearted Chabad-Hasidic movement in Judaism will reconsider their menorah strategy next winter. They’ve already succeeded in magnificent terms in installing some 6,000 highly visible menorahs in public places across the country (including, by the way, the Washington State Capitol in Olympia) – and even at unlikely sites like Red Square in Moscow. This is a singular, even inspriring, achievement. If, however, local authorities prove unwilling to accommodate the menorahs, it’s a terrible idea to try to force their hands by comparing our candelabra to Christmas trees or wreaths or Santa Claus effigies already in place.
Though some of my fellow Jews may howl in protest when I say so, there are strong arguments to be made against public menorahs that can’t be made against Christmas trees. It’s not just that Christians outnumber us in this society by about 40 to 1; it’s that Christmas trees reasonably can be construed as a secular symbol but a menorah (despite some prior court decisions) emphatically cannot. The eight-branched “Hanukiah” or “Menorah” that we light every year for the holiday specifically recalls the seven-branched menorah that was a sacred element in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem up till 70 A.D. Though the big menorahs with bulbs that are prominently displayed in public places are not, strictly speaking, sacramental objects (because they don’t use candles or oil), they distinctly resemble the smaller menorahs we use at home and over which we recite blessings (citing the Almighty, of course) every night of the holiday. In fact, the chief mitzvah (holy commandment) of the Hanukah holiday requires the lighting of these candelabra and reciting the blessings, so it’s deeply misleading or, at best, a stretch, to call the menorah a secular symbol. Christians do not routinely pronounce blessings or recite prayers over Christmas trees.
This doesn’t mean that I think that menorahs should come down from public places: they belong in parks and plazas and airports, shedding the light of their message, but so do nativity scenes and other holiday symbols that bear unmistakably religious trappings. When the founders prohibited “an establishment of religion” they did not mean to banish all faith-based imagery from the public square.
Nor, for that matter, did Rabbi Bogomilsky mean to banish Christmas decorations from the Seattle airport.
Spokespeople for the Port of Seattle say they’re “not in the business of offending anyone,” but when did Rabbi Bogomilsky ever say, or even imply, that he was offended by Christmas trees? As a matter of fact, he welcomes the trees, as do I, as do all people of good will – Jewish and Christian alike.
What offended the rabbi and should offend all of us is the banning of religious symbols, not their presence. The airport may not be “in the business of offending anyone” but they’ve just offended just about everyone with their stubborn, wrong-headed, and utterly misguided decision.
He is the one waving the attorneys around in a crowded place. That establishes intent.
Oh, geez, I read this header as "Did a Lone Rabbit Mean to Ban Christmas Trees", which seemed odd. Why would the rabbit care?
Will get coffee and return... The worst part is that I'd been following this Sea Tac story on another thread and STILL misread it.
Of course, another way of looking at it is: everyone was getting along just fine. Pretty trees, happy people.
Then someone decided to lawyer up.
Not being a clergyman myself, I would assume that people in the clergy have discussed this in trade magazines, etc. I could be wrong. I think he lawyered-up too early. A personal letter from the Rabbi might have provoked a less bureaucratic response from Sea Tac apparatchiks.
Irrelevant
He’s a good guy, a young father of five (including new-born twins), and the son-in-law of the wonderful Rabbi at the synagogue I attend each week.
STILL irrelevant
Sea-Tac certainly gave the predictable bureaucrat's reponse by throwing the baby out with the bathwater but the ball had to start rolling somehow.
Basically the rabbi is an azzclown in this situation and he will be made to look like the "Hebrew Hammer" by the action of hiring a lawyer and the CYA actions of the beauracrats at SeaTac.
That's funny. The way I type anymore, I'm surpised that's not the headline.
[Equating "asking" with "a demand followed by the threat of a fed lawsuit" would be like equating "STFU" with "Pardon me, I beg to differ".]
LOL!!!
Menorahs and Mangers, that's what I want to see in prominent places, in front of important buildings, at Christmas/Hannukka time.
I don't want to see Christmas trees and menorahs - menorahs are religious; Christmas trees are festive, but only tangentially religious (if you put an angel or a Star of Bethlhem on top, which they never do).
I don't want to see Santa and Rudolph and menorahs. Menorahs are religious. Santa, well, there WAS a Saint Nicolas, but the jolly man in the red suit with flying reindeer is not a religious symbol. (It's sad, because properly understood, Santa Claus WAS a religious symbol, of the spirit of Christian giving and love for children, especially.) There's nothing WRONG with Santa Claus, but he's an artifact of the season, and a commercialized one at that. A menorah is industrial-strength religion. So is a Manger.
I want to see Menorahs and Mangers. If there is a Menorah, I want to see a Manger, except in front of a Temple, obviously. If there's a Manger, a Menorah is fine (even in front of a Christian Church - Christians have the theological right to claim all of the Jewish holidays, although only a few do). This is America, and we're not all Christian, and this IS Hannukka season too.
I do NOT want to see a Muslim crescent. This is not Ramadan. This season has NO Muslim significance at all, and never did. I do not want to see the DILUTION of Christmas (and Hannukka) by the INCLUSION of crescent moons. It's inappropriate.
And I don't want to see funky Kwaanza-anythings. Kwaanza is as made-up as Rudolph the Red-Nosed-Reindeer, but not even half as old. It's not real, and I don't want to see it represented as though it is.
All of this is highly intolerant on my part, but then, I am a fan of democracy. 80% of us are Christians (95% of us celebrate Christmas). Let's celebrate our democracy a bit by CHOOSING to be a bit intolerant during OUR season. But let's choose to be tolerant of Jews, because there's a legitimate Jewish holiday during this time of the year for Jews, and we've beaten up on Jews enough over the course of our history that it's right to make a nod there. Anyway, Jesus and Mary and Joseph were Jews, and they'd no doubt approve, and seeing the two symbols juxtaposed gets you thinking about the issues that separate them, and makes you think about who's wrong and who's right, ultimately. That's not a bad thing to do.
But Crescents and Kwanzaa and any other damned impose-it-because-they're-sensitive symbol? No. Let's draw the line. Let's remind everybody of democratic power - that we CAN vote to be a little bit insensitive in order to celebrate OUR holiday without mucking it up with extraneous and inappropriate crap.
You're right. Shoulds been "Oy Vey Silverstein!"
I agree. No self-respecting lawyer would work unless being paid handsomely to do it. Someone was going to foot the bill for that lawsuit. Follow the money, you find the perp.
The Rabbi made two demands:
Put up a Jewish menorah and let us have a religious ceremony or tear the Christmas trees down. If you fail to comply with these demands we will sue your ass off.
The rabbis is not a passive player here.
From what I heard on the news this morning, the menorah would not go up without a religious ceremony conducted on the spot. And there's the rub.
And he is richly deserving of the attention he has brought upon himself.
I have no problem with a Menorah.
Here's a Holiday Tree.
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