For the first time in 20 years, the city of Moncton, Canada, decided to not have a menorah displayed outside of its city hall. In Williamsburg, Virginia, The Second Sundays Art and Music Festival, hosted by a nonprofit known as “LoveLight Placemaking” canceled its menorah lighting scheduled for this Sunday.
These are just two examples of towns across the world canceling their menorah lighting ceremonies and removing Hanukkah decorations from their holiday displays “out of concerns that the local governments may appear to be siding with Israel in its ongoing war against Hamas” writes Just The News.
Hanukkah is celebrated by lighting a menorah for eight nights and gradually increasing the number of candles each night; the holiday begins this Thursday evening. Councilmember Daniel Bourgeois told The Canadian Jewish News that counselors were told to either ban all religious symbols on public property or only allow a select few. The city decided to axe the menorah and Nativity display, but keep an official Christmas tree and sponsor the Royale Greater Moncton Santa Claus parade.
“It is unfair because, while banning the Jewish Menorah, the Christmas tree and the angels that are on City Hall ground will remain,” Moncton Jewish Community President Francis Weil said Friday on Facebook. “The Jewish Community is happy that the tree and the angels remain, but so should the Menorah. It is unfair because the Chanukah Menorah is, for Jews, a symbol of being accepted.”
The United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula said Sunday about the Williamsburg festival: “To be clear, the menorah lighting, which was to be led by a local community rabbi, had nothing to do with Israel or the conflict…Yet, appallingly, the event organizer claimed that a Chanukah celebration would send a message that the festival was ‘supporting the killing/bombing of thousands of men, women, and children,’ — and even went a step further, by offering to reinstate the event if it was done under a banner calling for a ceasefire.”
Havering Council in east London reversed its decision after backlash to not display a menorah to avoid “further inflaming tensions” related to the war in Israel, the BBC reported.
