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From: abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: San Francisco Menorah Controversy
Message-ID: <291@mhuxm.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Dec-84 16:03:53 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxm.291
Posted: Mon Dec 17 16:03:53 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Dec-84 03:00:36 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Murray Hill, NJ
Lines: 51


It happens that this intrepid and peripatetic net contributor has just returned
from San Francisco where he was exposed to the local controversy
(which Bill Peter of Los Alamos brought up) while reading the Northern
California Jewish Bulletin at the apartment of a friend.  Not incidentally,
I am personally acquainted with the San Francisco Lubavitcher Rabbi, Eli
Cohen, thanks to his hospitality this past June when I spent a
Shabbos in San Francisco on another trip.

If you had the stamina to read Peter's article (96 lines?) you know that there
is a controversy about whether giant menorahs are appropriate for display on
government property at Hanukah.  The facts were slightly obscured in Peter's
article, quoted from elsewhere.  Briefly, a giant menorah has been displayed
at this time of year for the last ten years in Union Square, in the center
of the fashionable shopping and hotel district of S.F., and next to the
financial district.  To convey the character of neighborhood, I'll mention
that two of the three cable car lines passes right by Union Square.  It is
a small one-block square park right in the middle of the busiest part of the
city.  The Lubavitcher movement, I believe, is completely responsible for the
menorah's existence.  It is about 15 feet tall; I saw it and photographed it
two years ago.

When the Lubavitchers wanted to place an additional menorah next to the
Golden Gate Bridge traffic, several Jewish groups appeared at a municipal
meeting to block it.  In the Northern California Jewish Bulletin, Rabbi
Eli Cohen expressed his "pro-menorah" opinion head on against a local
official of the B'nai Brith Anti Defamation League whose name I do not
recall.  However as many of you know, the BB ADL is a highly respectable
group which deserves the support of all Jews for its work to insure that
gross anti-semitism is not quietly insinuated into American life.

The entire argument between Lubavitch and the ADL is extremely simple.
I boils down to the fact that the ADL views the menorah on a par with
a "creche" (nativity scene), while Lubavitch views the menorah on a par
with a Christmas tree (for the purpose of comparison to accepted standards
of separation of church and state).  

Actually, I agree with the Lubavitch point of view.  In spite of Jewish groups'
efforts to prevent creches from being displayed in Pawtucket, RI and elsewhere,
I don't have trouble advocating the display of menorahs.  Should Jews police
themselves more stringently than non-Jews care to?  On this issue, I think not.

Correct me if I'm wrong, however.  Isn't the Christmas tree actually a
non-religious (i.e., non-historical) symbol of the season?  By comparison, the
menorah is explicitly a Jewish symbol with origins directly from historical
events reasonably central to Jewish theology.  So (don't tell anyone but,)
actually I think that the menorah is comparable to the creche.  But if Jews
aren't going to advance Jewish interests, who is?

--J. Abeles
  mhuxm!abeles