“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
It appears that the Ghost of Christmas Present visited Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky, prompting him to withdraw his threat of a lawsuit against Seattle’s Christmas display at Sea-Tac airport. We had a long discussion below when the news first broke, so this will be a short post. Good for Rabbi Bogomilsky. It shouldn’t have gone this far, but at least he did the right thing in the end. And since someone will want to remind me, I know he didn’t actually ask for the trees to come down — he only threatened to sue the airport’s pants off.
Tonight, Port of Seattle staff began putting up the trees they had taken down Friday night after a local rabbi requested that a Hanukkah menorah also be displayed. Port officials said the rabbi’s lawyer had threatened to imminently file a lawsuit, leaving them with insufficient time to consider all the issues.
A nationwide furor erupted over the weekend as news of the trees’ removal spread, with a flood of calls to Port officials and harshly worded e-mails to Jewish organizations. Today, Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky said he would not file a lawsuit and the Port, in response, said it would put the trees back up.
Wizbang has a different take, so fair is fair. Also see California Conservative, Rymes with Right, and Stop the ACLU.
This may not be over. Nobody should be surprised to find the ACLU bringing a lawsuit, like tomorrow, proposing what the Rabbi did originally or whatever else they think will make people mad. Can liberals resist filling the receding wake of such national furor with a giant publicity opportunity? What a fabulous chance to attack anew the most cherished traditions in our culture!
[tags]christmas, trees, seattle, airport, Elazar+Bogomilsky, scrooge, dickens, carol, Sea-Tac, holiday, decoration, secular, religious, aclu[/tags]
December 12th, 2006 at 6:52 am
KKK Member David Duke Attended Iran’s Holocaust Conference…
Former U.S. Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke attended Iran’s Holocaust conference. Iran banned any dissenting voices from Holocaust conference by not issuing visas to those folks. I’m sure they were more than happy to have Mr. Duke in attendance….
December 12th, 2006 at 9:29 am
God bless us, everyone!
December 12th, 2006 at 11:18 am
McCain,
I am afraid that you and many others may have fallen into the trap of the liberal media on this one.
After having actually looked into what happened, and saw an interview the Rabbi had last night on the O’Reilly Factor, his role in all this has been grossly distorted and it is very inappropriate to paint him as a Scrooge figure. JohnJ over at your old blogging grounds was duped even worse.
It is worth noting that the Rabbi was not able to tell his side of the story when this broke because the story did so over the Sabbath where he was unavailable to the media.
As far as I can tell, he never said a thing about wanting the trees to come down and did not want them to come down at all.
The Sea-Tac airport were the bad guys in this, not the Rabbi. The trees are going back up now, which is good, but a Menorah belongs there as well, and for the life of me, I do not understand why Christians would consider a recognition of Hanukkah and the many Jews that will be visiting that airport as somehow watering down their holiday or taking away from it.
What the Seattle Port Authority and the liberal media have done on this is to create a controversy where none should have existed and have succeeded in making this some sort of conflict between Christianity and Judaism, which is something that should never have happened.
I do not believe the Rabbi for one second wanted the trees to not be there. He has made that clear. It was completely within his right to try to get the airport to put up a Menorah, not because we Jews feel that we need to “compete� with Christmas, but because people like me would probably like the opportunity to also see that particular symbol of Hanukkah in recognition of the inspirational and hopeful story behind it.
We may only be about 2 percent of the U.S.’s population (significantly higher in most major metropolitan areas) but it is completely appropriate for Jews to be able to revel in the holiday season as well in a place like an airport, especially as we end a year in which Jews have frequently been the victims of violent attacks, both in the Middle East, and even in Seattle, Washington.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwaanza, Ramadan, Festivus, Winter Solstice to all!
December 12th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Corey,
As I said very clearly in my post:
“And since someone will want to remind me, I know he didn’t actually ask for the trees to come down — he only threatened to sue the airport’s pants off.”
Nobody’s been duped. The Rabbi threatened a lawsuit to include his own religion in a Christian display. The attempt at excusing his behavior is simply historical revisionism. I know he didn’t want the trees down.
And I don’t see it as a cataclysmic conflict between Christianity and Judaism. Rather I see it as another example of the multiculturalism that is a cancer in our society. Have a Menorah display, go ahead. I support it. Or not, but let the locals decide these things. And they decided NO this time. So he threatened a lawsuit. THAT is the problem.
I don’t feel so threatened by a menorah as to insist on the nativity next to it. Is there a nativity scene next to the wailing wall?
This issue to me is multiculturalis gone amok in our society. That’s all. The Christians can have their celebrations. Jewish people can have theirs. BUT they don’t always have to meet.
December 12th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
I do not think the lawsuit thing is necessarily fact, considering the other journalistic errors that were made in this story, but if a lawyer was involved, it was certainly not for the intent to have the trees come down. I know that the Rabbi made a suggestion to the airport authorities, which was completely his right to do so as an American citizen. I do not know that a lawsuit was included.
So, if anyone should be called scrooge, it should be the powers that be at the airport.
We are talking about an airport. Not a church or a synagogue or the Wailing Wall. Both holidays should be observed there. A nativity scene, which I do not have any problem with, is a far more explicitly religious display than a Menorah would be. The story of Hanukkah is in the Old Testament of course, which Christians believe in as well. I understand that obviously Christians recognize Christmas as their official holiday this time of year, but in my 28 years, I have never actually heard from a Christian who feels that an observance of Hanukkah, which is about a miracle of the Lord that all of us who would believe in the Old Testament would honor, is inappropriate in that context.
It has nothing to do with “multi-culturalism� It is about fairness. I cannot imagine a major American city such as Seattle having a holiday observance for one and not the other.
If Seattle had decided that only menorahs would be allowed and not trees, Christians would be complaining too, and rightfully so.
Honestly, it just seems that some conservatives are willing to jump to conclusions on this as part of an agenda to fight the “War on Christmas�, regardless of what the true facts of this specific matter are. I do sympathize to a great extent with those who find Christmas under assault by aspects of our society, but the way to fight against that is not to demand that in a public place like an airport, that only Christmas must be recognized and those who want to suggest that another holiday be included are somehow “stealing Christmas� or grinches.
Christians can have their celebrations in their homes and churches and Jews can do the same in their homes and places of worship, but when it comes to a place like a major airport in a city with a sizable Jewish population, both celebrations should meet, and that is the American way.
December 12th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Boy am I glad that I’ve spent the last several hours either working on my synagogue’s newsletter (which has nothing in it about Chanuka or Christmas, thank you) OR ordering gifts for nieces and nephews on both sides of my family, five of whom celebrate both holidays and one of whom celebrates only Chanuka. Cuz when it comes to the aunt and uncle’s bottom line, I just spent some nice gelt on shipping and handling.
God has truly blessed America! Or at least my nieces and nephews! (This is a tongue in cheek comment at the end of a long day from someone who doesn’t think that there can be too much multiculturalism - seriously - what would that mean? That NYC is an overly mulitcultural place? I don’t understand that, really.)
December 12th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
And I don’t see it as a cataclysmic conflict between Christianity and Judaism. Rather I see it as another example of the multiculturalism that is a cancer in our society.
I take it that you are unaware that Jews have been *THE* enforcers of multi-cult?!?
Hoo boy. Perhaps they are right about “the dumb goyim.” geeez
http://theseus.wordpress.com
December 13th, 2006 at 6:58 am
Theseus-that is one of the most unsubstantiated assertions I’ve ever seen. What on earth on your talking about - facts, or your personal experience? As I noted above, Jews only comprise less than one-half of one percent of the U.S. Population of 300 million (1.5 million people total for Jews - and that’s just who claims they affiliate with Judaism, has nothing to do with whether they even observe).
What are you talking about??
December 13th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Yikes. Hard to tell what Theseus is all about. Visited your websites, old boy, which just aggregates other’s peoples news articles without anything to say of your own, just like those annoying aggregators that trackback spam everyone. And you have a particular interest in aggregating any news in the world with the word “Jew” contained in it for some reason. All the earmarks of robotic blogging, except you left us a comment here, albeit containing a plug for your uninteresting website. Odd duck. Let us know when you return from Iran.
Jill, thanks for visiting again.
December 13th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Theseus, shouldn’t you be at that conference in Tehran today?
December 13th, 2006 at 11:29 am
Woops, I should have read McCain’s comment first, as he already beat me to it with the Iran reference!
December 13th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Oh you caught me there. I mostly aggregate other content.
My blog is a way for my wife and I (both grad school students) to send one another links. It appears that a few others visit, as well.
I also post progress on songs I am writing for various projects, but yeah it’s mostly news/political analysis/bioscience/historiography/ stuff I’m interested in. Some articles are accompanied by my personal reaction. I do have a couple of rants on there.
http://theseus.wordpress.com/2006/11/18/an-opening-shot/
Oh, I also make predictions that have a high tendency of coming true (such as the U.S. shifting position on al Sadr from being an enemy to an ally). I also talk about the most profound intellectual crime of our time: the imprisonment of scholars who research the holocaust and disagree with the Soviet Jews who laid down the first iteration of the story in the 1940s. Indeed, we can say G. Washington was a slave-owner via historical revisionism, yet no one is supposed to point out the fact that the 6M death-toll of the Holocaust is comically improbable once one breaks down the numbers . . . or that FDR staged Pearl Harbor—that’s one of my favorite topics, since my family was basically wiped out in WWII, most having signed up after that event.
When the American conservatives figure out you neo-cons have been lying to them, they’re going to be looking for the truth of “why there were no flower-throwers?” or “why no wmds?” or “how is it that conservatives are for open-borders?” or “why is the RNC chairman (Mehlman) a gay Jew?” They’re going to start wondering why neocons fail to describe reality, and that they keep getting burned by the results of this failure to deal with reality.
When that time comes, my blog will be one of the thousands that, unlike the mainstream press, suggests true alternatives to the two brands of reality-denying liberalism that passes for our current, albeit crumbling, liberal/conservative political paradigm. We are the future. Tomorrow belongs to us.
Thanks for reading,
–Theseus
December 13th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Also, Jill, your numbers are off, dear:
Wiki says: Jewish community estimates place the number of American Jews to be near 5.2 million. You guys always seem to have your numbers off by millions.
Also, you doubt that Jews have been multi-cult propagators? Where have you been? Jews *BRAG* about it! Jews have been the primary movers behind Communism (multi-cult as a political organizational principle), from its inception by Jew Karl Marx, to the bolshevists, who were mostly German and American Jews. Anyone doubting me should google Winston Churchill’s essay: “ZIONISM versus BOLSHEVISM”.
Thanks for reading,
–Theseus
http://theseus.wordpress.com
December 13th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Aren’t you at all ashamed that people have to go to Iran to speak freely? You know . . . disagree but will defend to the death your right to say it?
December 13th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Original intent: Our Constitution allows local governments to impose religion on the population. Local governments can establish an official church and force citizens to pay tithes, and fine or jail them if they do not attend the official church services regularly.
As interpreted by activist liberal judges: All of the above is “unconstitutional.”
March 13th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
home equity loan…
good luck…