Jewish Displays at Christmastime

So it’s that time of year again, when the American Jewish Congress goes on its war against Jewish public celebrations.

There is something sad about these people harping about a menorah being lit in public. Why don’t we hear from the American Jewish Congress when Catholic clergy conduct a ritual for blessing the animals on public property? Where are they when there is an Easter egg hunt on the White House lawn? Or when the President lights the national Christmas tree? They should be asking why the courts have required that the menorah be lit at the same period as an adjacent Christmas tree and that they be of approximately the same size.

Why not a national sukkah on the White House lawn on the Jewish Festival of Sukkot--or is that taboo because there is no Christian holiday on the calendar at the same time? Is the American Jewish Congress planning a court challenge against the next public parade and celebration of the Chinese New Year? The list is long, and the American Jewish Congress seems to have a very limited agenda. For example, one might ask, if a Jew were elected President, would he or she also be required to display, let alone light, a Christmas tree? If the American Jewish Congress is serious, as they claim, about “separation of church and state,” then these are some of the issues they should be addressing. Until they do, their credibility is nil. At best they are pitiful; at worst, hypocrites.

At a time when America has finally come to value its diversity and has outgrown the turn-of-the-century myth of the “melting pot,” these people seem like a pathetic relic of the past. I am weary of their tirades. They don’t represent me, and I suspect that they don’t represent a vast majority of today’s Jews in America, for whom being a Jew is a matter of ethnic, cultural and, yes, religious pride. I find the use of the word Jewish in the name of their organization offensive; I wish they would remove it.

DAVID TAMIR

Los Angeles