Delray Beach, FL – Menorah’s Absence is Legally Safer for City, Manager Says

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    City Manager David Harden Says Menorah's Absence is Legally Safer for CityDelray Beach, FL – When City Commissioner Adam Frankel noticed that Old School Square had no menorah alongside the 100-foot Christmas tree this year, all he wanted was a simple answer — something along the lines of, “Oops, we’ll put one up right away.”
    Instead, he got a memo from City Manager David Harden that left him upset.

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    Harden wrote that a temple had sponsored a menorah in past years but had not contacted the city this year. He also attached a 2006 legal opinion from a city attorney. And Harden added that the city’s tree-only display “has kept us out of any litigation on the matter and has avoided Old School Square having to allow things on their grounds they would prefer not to have there.”

    As Frankel read the Monday e-mail, Harden was calling a menorah one of those “things” better left out.

    “In my view, that is offensive,” Frankel said. He added: “Inclusion is better  than exclusion, and Delray has always been a city that celebrates its ethnic diversity.”

    But the city manager said Frankel may have misunderstood his words. Harden said he had been referring to a 1995 ruling in which the U.S. Supreme Court said the Ku Klux Klan had the right to put a cross next to a Christmas tree and a menorah on the state capitol lawn in Columbus, Ohio.

    Having only a secular display, such as the tree, puts the city at less risk, Harden maintained.
    “I have no personal objection to menorahs whatsoever,” he said. “But Christmas displays have been the subject of litigation, and the city needs to be cautious about how it handles the issue.”

    After the issue came up again at last night’s city commission meeting, Harden said his e-mail needs to be understood in the context of the legal opinion attached to it.

    “Just be aware that if we go that route, we may end up with that type of controversy,” Harden said, referring to the Klan case.

    Mayor Woodie McDuffie apologized to anyone who felt “insulted or belittled” by the absence of the menorah and said the commission would revisit its policy on holiday displays.

    Similar displays have tripped up other local governments in the perpetual tug of war of secular and religious imagery.
    Even so, Wellington has both a Christmas tree and menorah in the lobby of the village’s community center. In Boca Raton, a menorah and a Nativity scene are both on display in a “free speech area” that the city set up in the 1990s near the old town hall.

    At sundown Friday, Jewish people around the world begin celebrating the eight-day holiday of Hanukkah, which recalls the 2,200-year-old miracle of a jar of purified oil that kept a menorah lighted for eight days.

    The message of Hanukkah is relevant to all people regardless of religion, especially in troubled times, said Rabbi Dovid Vigler of Chabad in the Gardens in Palm Beach Gardens.

    “The little flickering flames of the menorah are those little messages of hope,” said Vigler, who on Saturday will join Palm Beach Gardens commissioners in lighting the first candle of a 13-foot menorah at privately owned Downtown at the Gardens.

    One legal expert said Delray Beach can legally have a Christmas tree without a menorah. That’s because the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that a Christmas tree is not a religious symbol, said David Barkey, Miami-based attorney for the Anti-Defamation League.
    “This is part of what we call the December dilemma,” he said. “This is a sensitivity issue.”

    In Palm Beach County, cities and towns handle the dilemma in a variety of ways. Most have Christmas trees, sometimes, as in Boynton Beach, calling them “holiday trees.”

    Similarly, Jupiter and Lake Park put up displays such as “reindeer, signs that say ‘Season’s Greetings,’ holiday decorations. That avoids any controversy,” said Tom Baird, the town attorney in both communities.

    Royal Palm Beach has a holiday display at Veteran’s Park, but the village does not allow any religious symbols, said village manager David Farber. “We make an effort not to involve ourselves in anybody’s religious persuasions,” Farber said.


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    14 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Menoras don’t belong next to xmas trees, anyway. If the yidden don’t understand that, at least the goyim do.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    The problem is that the more “enlightened” Jews and many X-ians think that Chanukah & X-mas are “equal” holidays. Thus, they feel it’s important to have all the symbols out in the town square or in some other “public” area where everyone can see them. I’m all for pirsumei nisa, but I feel it’s a Jewish obligation, not a goyish government’s desire to be non-offensive. Let the Yidden put the menorah in front of their shul on Chanukah or in the window of their homes on Chanukah, not in a public square from Thanksgiving until Epiphany.

    AuthenticSatmar
    AuthenticSatmar
    14 years ago

    The tree has become a non religious symbol, and so I say the candelabra should as well.
    Frankly as a jew I’m not offended by Christmas display’s, but as a religion neutral country, there should be no taxpayer funded holiday nor religious symbols at all.
    I say no trees, no Menorah.

    Richard Nixon
    Richard Nixon
    14 years ago

    So many menorahs have been put next to so many trees chanukah is c”v going to become nothing more than a Jewish xmas.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    no xmas is the goyishe channukah.

    Keep the menoras on Jewish land, not next to Xmas trees
    Keep the menoras on Jewish land, not next to Xmas trees
    14 years ago

    Who ever heard of this thing that Lubavitch is doing, trying to put menoras everywhere? Did you ever hear of such things in the alter heim, in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Lita…? Enough of this new Lubavitcher ‘minhag’ to put menoras next to Xmas trees!

    Mattasiya-who?
    Mattasiya-who?
    14 years ago

    The miracle of Hanukkah was the defeat of internal Helenists, and the nes of the oil was the hechsher of the A-lmightly because we didn’t know whether it was okay to wage war on corrupt Jews.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    wow snce when did pirsumei nissah become a lubavitcher minhag if you have a problem with it being near a xmas tree that is a debatable topic but having public menorahs is something every jewish chasidish heimish litvish mosad should be doing ts a halocha a part of chanuka go learn kitzur shluchom oruch.

    Ich shaym zich oych nisht
    Ich shaym zich oych nisht
    14 years ago

    The answer is to get all stores and many people to light up Channukah lights all over Delray Beach! Kak zei alleh oon. There are few voyle Goyim but there are some