Santa Ana Disallows Lighting Menorah, Orders Its Removal

After a challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union, the City of Santa Ana on Friday withdrew a permit allowing a ceremonial lighting of a 10-foot Hanukkah menorah in Sasscer Park and removed the structure.

Rabbi David Eliezrie then brought a small, portable menorah to the park and conducted a lighting ceremony at sundown.

Eliezrie vowed to pursue unspecified “legal options” next week in an effort to restore the specially made, gold-colored plastic menorah that city workers removed from Sasscer Park. The ACLU had challenged the lighting ceremony on public property as an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.

Eliezrie’s lawyer, Daniel B. Spitzer, said Santa Ana City Atty. Edward Cooper had given him a “simple choice” concerning the larger candelabrum Friday morning: “He said, ‘Either you remove it or I will.’ ”

Orthodox Hasidic Group

Spitzer said members of the Chabad congregation of Anaheim, the Orthodox Hasidic group that erected the menorah, first agreed to remove it, then changed their minds.

“We decided we should not roll over, that it was illegitimate for the city to roll over to the ACLU’s demand.” Spitzer said.

Accompanied by a number of news reporters, Eliezrie, Spitzer and Rabbi Moishe Shur lighted the first candle on the portable menorah at sundown. The Hanukkah menorah commemorates the liberation of the Jerusalem Temple from the Syrians in 165 BC.

Its eight branches represent the miraculous eight days during which, according to traditional lore, the temple lamp burned when the Jews had barely enough purified oil for a single day. At sundown on each day of the holiday, known as the “festival of lights,” an additional candle is lighted on another branch.

‘No Legal Ground’

“In every city in the United States where the ACLU has challenged the lighting of Hanukkah menorahs, including three in the last two weeks--Seattle, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh--they have lost,” Eliezrie said. “They have no legal ground for their challenge.”

Eliezrie pointed to a Christmas tree decorated with lights that stood 50 feet from the portable menorah.

“We are not challenging the city’s right to have a Christmas tree,” he said. “We live in a pluralistic society. We feel if there is a Christmas tree, there is no reason there shouldn’t be a Hanukkah menorah.”

Meir J. Westreich, vice president of the Southern California chapter of the ACLU, said a tree is decoration, while the menorah is a “religious symbol.”

Allen Doby, executive director of recreation and community service for the city, said he approved the Chabad request on Monday. But after he talked to city lawyers Friday about ACLU objections, Doby said he called Eliezrie.

“We discussed it with them and suggested they remove it,” Doby said. “They said yes, they would remove it by a certain time. Since they didn’t move it, we did.”

State and federal constitutions prohibit such a religious ceremony on government property, according to Westreich.

“The matter was referred to Ed Cooper, the city attorney. He indicated they have revoked the permission,” Westreich said.

The ACLU objection focused on the fact that the menorah would remain in the park after the lighting ceremony.

“It becomes an endorsement when they either are giving any kind of special access that they do not generally allow to everybody, or after the demonstration, they allow a continuing display on public property,” Westreich said.

L.A. Challenge Fails

“Then it creates the appearance that this is associated with the owners of the property, who are the public,” according to Westreich.

Two weeks ago, the ACLU lost a court challenge to a historic menorah on display at City Hall in Los Angeles.

“The court concluded the menorah itself was unique because it had been salvaged out of the Holocaust,” Westreich said. “It has a historical and cultural status, and there is independent justification for displaying it. It was OK, so long as it was not used as a religious 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.”