Dateline Seattle: War on Christmas Wrong, War on Chanukah Just Dandy

Now let's be clear about it.

Any facility that fails to put up a Christmas tree is declaring war on Christmas. Any store that fails to use "Merry Christmas" is declaring war on Christmas. Christian organizations that sue or boycott either of the above are completely in the right.

By contrast a Rabbi who asked the airport to put up a Menorah alongside NOT instead of the Christmas trees is in the wrong. Why? Because apparently fighting to put up a Christmas tree makes you a hero in the Judeo-Christian culture war. Asking to put up a Menorah makes you the villain. So much for the Judeo part of our 'Judeo-Christian Heritage.'

Rather than put up a Menorah the airport announced it was taking down the trees so as not to be exclusive (an utterly backward phrasing because the whole point of their action was to be exclusive) and the comments vituperatively blame Rabbi Bogomilski for the whole thing warning that America as we know it is about to fall apart.

In other words a War on Christmas is wrong but a War on Chanukah is just dandy. There's an inalienable right by Christian spiritual leaders to demand Christmas trees go up whether on public or private property, but a Jewish spiritual leader who asks for a Menorah is not only in the wrong but downright wicked.

The usual comeback to this is that America is a Christian country and the vast majority of Americans celebrate Christmas, which bluntly reveals the charade of a 'Judeo-Christian Heritage.' It's all Christian with no Jews wanted. Neither presumably are those Christians who shun Christmas trees or Christmas, like Jehovah's Witnesses or Lowell Ponte over at Newsmax who wrote that he was happy to see a symbol of paganism removed from the airport.

To be fair Bill O'Reilly who was one of the top promoters of the War on Christmas interviewed the Rabbi and pointed out reasonably enough that it was the airport that chose to eliminate the trees, rather than add one menorah. But plenty of conservative Christian columnists took a nastier line.

"Once again, in a country touted as a “Christian Nation” where a majority of the people identify themselves as Christians and where tradition certainly attests to the veracity of this claim, an individual has forced the majority to bend to his will," Doug Bower wrote at the American Chronicle.

Let's see, America was never set up as an exclusively Christian nation. Christmas tree celebrations were not part of American Christian traditions until they were imported by German immigrants and Christmas only became a national holiday after the civil war during the Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. That's a good century later.

But see how when an evangelical Christian sues over school prayer or displaying the cross, they're fighting for religion but when a Rabbi, who's the representative of a sizable movement, does so, he's an individual forcing the majority to bend to his will.

"I just wonder what would happen if a Christian went into an exclusively Jewish neighborhood..."Bower goes on to wonder. Somehow now the Seattle airport has become an exclusively Christian neighborhood.

Considering that Seattle has a roughly 7 percent Jewish population, a sizable portion of the city is Jewish. In a survey only 37 percent of the city listed any religious affiliation. Of those only about 30 percent identified themselves with any Christian faith. Yet that third of Seattle is the majority and the other 7 percent have no right to have one menorah corresponding to the many Christmas trees there.

But with the magic of rhetoric people like Bower transmogrify multi-ethnic and multi-religious American cities into a solid Christian block and stuff the Deist founders of America into that same block who they presume, despite all statements to the contrary, would have supported their religious and political agendas.

The irony is that a Menorah is a biblical symbol present in Christianity. The Book of the Maccabees is considered by many Christians to be part of the Christian Bible. The story of Hannah and her Seven Sons was retold by Christians as a lesson in martyrdom for one's faith. For Christians to become offended by a menorah is senseless, unless they're also offended by the G-d who commanded Moshe and Aaron to construct and light one in the first place.

The story of Chanukah is a story about resisting paganism and fighting for one's faith. It should be the kind of idea that those Americans who are concerned about the erosion of religious values should embrace, rather than scapegoat and demonize.