Judge OKs L.A.’s Menorah Display Next to Yule Tree

In a ruling that recognizes government’s right to embrace certain religious symbols, a Superior Court judge Thursday granted the City of Los Angeles’ request to display an historic Jewish menorah at City Hall.

Judge Robert H. O’Brien rejected the American Civil Liberties Union’s contention that displaying the menorah next to a Christmas tree in the City Hall rotunda violates the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state.

“Many things in American public life have religious significance. Much of our government activity stresses religious foundations. The applicable constitutional provisions do not require purging of all religious symbolism in our public life,” O’Brien wrote in his opinion.

O’Brien said the menorah, a century-old brass candleholder rescued from the Great Synagogue of Katowitz in Poland during the Holocaust, “presents the citizens of Los Angeles with a visual display of history and culture. The display will undoubtedly educate and enlighten citizens, and this serves a valuable public purpose.”

The ruling, which echoed higher court decisions that have granted local governments the right to display such secularized religious symbols as the Christmas tree, drew immediate criticism from the ACLU and divided opinions among Jewish groups.

“The judge has basically said that anytime somebody comes forward and says a religious symbol has educational significance, it’s permitted,” said ACLU attorney Carol A. Sobel. “There are close to 300 recognized religions in this country, and I certainly hope that each and every one of them demands a space in the L.A. City Hall rotunda.”

The ACLU was not challenging the 21-foot-Christmas tree that stands in the rotunda, primarily, Sobel said, because it has lost similar fights in the past.

But Marshall Grossman, representing Chabad Lubavitch, the Orthodox Jewish group that has loaned the menorah to the city at Hanukkah for the past three years, said it would not have been fair to display one religious symbol and not the other.

“Our preference would be that there be no religious symbols in government buildings, but . . . it would be hypocritical and cruel to deny this very simple, elegant expression of holiday good will while permitting another,” Grossman said.

Said Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, West Coast director of Chabad Lubavitch: “We have been vindicated by the system because the judge said just what we said: that there is a religious significance in one side of the menorah, but the message of the menorah is also universal, a message of freedom to all human beings.”

The American Jewish Congress filed briefs in support of the ACLU’s position and expressed strong reservations about the city’s--and the judge’s--assertion that the menorah has cultural and educational value beyond its role as a religious symbol.

“I think fundamentally as Jews we recognize that there are symbols which are unique to the Jewish religion and whose integrity as religious symbols must be preserved,” said Douglas E. Mirell, attorney for the organization.

“One of the unfortunate things that occurs when religious symbols are utilized by government or are given a government stamp of approval is that they tend to lose their religious significance and in fact become secularized,” Mirell said.

But Chabad countered with declarations from a variety of rabbis asserting that the menorah has true religious significance only when lighted privately in the home.

Called a Holiday Symbol

The most widely publicized ruling on the display of religious symbols at Christmas came in 1984 from the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld a city nativity display in a downtown Pawtucket, R.I., shopping district, holding that it represented a “traditional symbol of a national public holiday.”

The courts have been less generous with regard to more specific religious symbols. Earlier this year, two federal appeals courts barred displays of crosses at city halls, and a nearly identical ruling was handed down by a federal district court in New Hampshire.

Another case is pending in Los Angeles Superior Court, where the ACLU is challenging a nativity scene display at a public park near Downey City Hall.

The Hanukkah menorah commemorates the liberation from the Syrians of the Jerusalem Temple in 165 BC. Its eight branches represent the miraculous eight days that, according to legend, the temple lamp burned when the Jews had barely enough purified oil for a single day.

Chabad members say the Katowitz menorah, described as in the Italian Renaissance style, has significance both as a work of art and as an historical symbol of the friendship between the Hapsburg monarchy and the Jews of Poland.

The menorah is scheduled to go on display Dec. 26 just before the start of Hanukkah.