Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lanl.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!lanl!wkp From: wkp@lanl.ARPA Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Heat and light over a menorah Message-ID: <17829@lanl.ARPA> Date: Tue, 11-Dec-84 23:46:32 EST Article-I.D.: lanl.17829 Posted: Tue Dec 11 23:46:32 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 02:29:04 EST Sender: newsreader@lanl.ARPA Distribution: net Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory Lines: 89 The following is the major part of an article which appeared in the S.F. Chronicle and which I am posting for the most part without any comment. The article concerns the efforts of a Lubavitcher Rabbi (Eli Cohen) to put a giant menorah near the entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge. The article was written by a non-Jew, Warren Hinkle. *************************************************************** The rabbi gazed over the boundless bay and sighed. "This is where we hope to put the menorah on Hanukkah, he said. The rabbi was thin like a frail sandwhich with a saint's smile on his milk-fed face and a long red beard that had passport to heaven writeen all over it. Rabbi Cohen came here recently from N.Y. City, where menorahs on bridges leading to and from Manhattan are as unexceptional as flags at City Hall. The rabbi had this dream of putting a menorah -- the symbol of light and freedom -- near the Golden Gate Bridge entrance. But in San Francisco, big artillery has been drawn against the bridge menorah. It's not the Christians who are in opposition. It's the Jews. A proposal to establish an outdoor Hanukkah menorah near the toll plaza entrance to the bridge will be heard by the bridge Board of Directors this morning. It was submitted on the rabbi's behalf by bridge director Quentin Kopp, who noted that the plaza was a place where "other holiday symbols, most notably Christmas trees, have also been placed in the past." The menorah proposal has been formally opposed by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and the Jewish Community Council of San Francisco, Marin, and the Peninsula. No other...voices have been raised in opposition. I [Warren Hinkle] called up Earl Rabb, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, to ask him what in G-d's name he had against putting up a holiday menorah at the Golden Gate Bridge, where there have been Christmas trees as long as I can remember. Rabb said that the Jewish organizations were maintaining a militant watch over the separation of church and state and were "concerned about preserving a strong constitutional society." He said the menorah was a religious symbol and therefore his people felt it was not proper to display it on public property. What about the giant menorah that Bill Graham built that is lit in Union Square every year at Hanukkah? What about the Christmas trees in public squares all over town? Why pick on a menorah off on one side of the Golden Gate Bridge plaza? Rabb said the "current political climate" had heightened "Jewish sensitivity" to the public display of Jewish religious symbols. He defined the current climate as the "increasing Christianization of America" under Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell. In such a time, Rabb said, if I understand him correctly, many Jews fear roiling the waters of anti-Jewish prejudice by doing something as upfront as putting a nice menorah off to the side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Although I empathize with Rabb and the guardians of the separation of church and state, I think they are a bit overcautious in letting their fear of Jerry Falwell put a damper on bringing light and cheer to the holiday season here. [Hinkle then proceeds to close his article with some examples of his sense of humor.] To someone who spent 16 years in the religious concentration camp [sic] of Catholic schools, the menorah is a beautiful and historical symbol, as Rabbi Cohen instructed me yesterday, of the very freedom to express religion publicly that the bridge directors will rule on today. For what it's worth, I'm saying 10 Hail Marys for the rabbi. ********************************************************************* Comments? bill peter los alamos