Durham, NH – Town Denies Jewish Group’s Request To Display Menorah

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    Durham, NH – New Hampshire officials are under fire for denying a 10-foot-tall (3-meter) menorah to be displayed next to a tree decorated annually at a local park.

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    Town Administrator Todd Selig said the local Chabad Jewish organization asked for the menorah to be put next to the tree, but town officials said no, citing vandalism concerns.

    Selig said the area town officials were not “comfortable” leaving the menorah on display for the eight nights of Hanukkah.

    The Durham Human Rights Commission is now deciding the next steps to take. Selig said the commission’s perspective was that it should really be all or none.

    The tree in Durham is decorated each year to celebrate the winter season, WMUR-TV reported .

    “The fact that the city allows for some to publicly express their culture is a good thing, and we hope that continues,” Rabbi Berel Slavaticki of the University of New Hampshire and Seacoast Chabad Jewish Center said in a statement. “To stop people from openly expressing their particular faith seems un-American and would be a terrible loss for our town and our country.”

    Slavaticki said the center is committed to working with the town administration “to create a path forward that will allow everyone to enjoy their constitutionally guaranteed rights.

    “Not allowing a menorah for fear of anti-Semitism only emboldens and enables those who hate,” he said. “After all, that’s exactly what they’d want to see; our menorah not allowed.”


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    12 Comments
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    puppydogs
    puppydogs
    5 years ago

    Proving once again that liberals are the most anti semetic group around. Yes Hashomer NH is a blue state that voted for Hillary in 2016

    5 years ago

    Every year, we go through this roller coaster, regarding the public display of the menorah. I remember, back in 1955, in the 7th grade, at Public School 217, in Brooklyn, N.Y., I had a farbisen music teacher, by the name of Miss Kieselbach. Even though a former Jewish President of the NYC Board of Education tried in vain, in 1947, to ban the teaching and singing of Christmas songs in 1947, in NYC public schools, he was overruled by the goyim on the board, and by pressure from church groups. At that time, the Jewish community was not as active politically, as it is today. In any event, Kieselbach had been teaching the class, which then was comprised of about 35-40% Jews, and the rest being Irish and Italian-Americans. One day, the boys (including the gentiles), were playing with a Chanukah dreidle. All of a sudden, that snake Kiesebach started shouting in a very angry manner DON’T YOU BRING RELIGION INTO CLASS”. Even though I wasn’t playing with the dreidle, I’ll never forget her angry look, with those piercing brown, anti-semitic eyes. I guess that she didn’t consider teaching he class various Christmas songs, and other religious songs, as having to do with religion.

    Phineas
    Phineas
    5 years ago

    Leave the goyim alone with this stuff. If you get permission, great, if you don’t, move on or deal with it quietly.

    Bshtei_Einayim
    Bshtei_Einayim
    5 years ago

    We have the right as Americans but as Jews in golus, we should not push our religion into public displays.

    yosher
    yosher
    5 years ago

    The Mitzvah of Chanukah is Shulchan Aruch descibed. There is no excuse to aggravate the Goyim… this is a Christian country. Light your Menorahs at home (Ner Ish U-Bayso) and in OUR public spaces; don’t continue endangering the Jewish Yishuv in America by chipping away at the wall separating church and state.

    NJMoshe
    NJMoshe
    5 years ago

    Jews in the area where I was raised never made a public spectacle of a menorah for Chanukah. Now, every time I hear of a “Community” menorah lighting, what I see are not the members of a synagogue that was actually founded by the community, but the Chabad who has inserted itself and has fooled the Goyish community leaders into believing that they are the community. Every “Community Menorah” I have seen is the phony looking Chabad Menorah, and not the traditional menorah.