Associated Press
PASADENA, Calif. - Managers of the Paseo Colorado shopping mall changed their minds and will permit display of a 13-foot-tall Hanukkah menorah.
"The miracle of Hanukkah continues," said Rabbi Chaim Hanoka, whose 300-member Chabad of Pasadena congregation has sponsored display of the Jewish candlestick for the past three years.
"I would say that a wrong has been righted," he said.
On Wednesday, management announced that the menorah would not be permitted this year because religious symbols are not appropriate in the commercial center.
The center's 30-foot Christmas tree would remain because it was not a religious symbol but simply "holiday decor," said Colleen Dunn, regional general manager for Ohio-based Developers Diversified Realty, which manages Paseo Colorado.
The decision prompted media attention, criticism from both Christians and Jews and talk of a boycott of the mall during its busy holiday season. On Thursday, Dunn issued a statement that her company had changed its mind and would allow the menorah.
"We realize the importance of diversity on all fronts," Dunn said.
"I'm delighted," Mayor Bill Bogaard said. "I think it's important for Pasadena to demonstrate its diversity."
Hanukkah, a festival celebrated by lighting candles on eight consecutive nights, begins this year on Christmas Day. The holiday commemorates how Jews recaptured the Jerusalem Temple from a Syrian despot around 165 B.C., and how the one-day supply of lamp oil they found afterward miraculously lasted for eight days.
Good for the mall and the people that shop there. Who do they think will visit their mall if they start to snuff out acknowledgements of Christmas and Hanukkah? Christians and Jews alike visit the mall, not just the 'world at large'
ReplyDeleteI can't figure how they could call a Christmas tree "decor" and a menorah "a religious symbol." That's a very slippery slope for a mall to take.
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