By JOHN IWASAKI
P-I REPORTER
[Editor's Note: Port Commissioner John Creighton's name was misspelled in the original version of this article.]
The Christmas spirit has returned to Sea-Tac Airport.
The Port of Seattle, which had been battered internationally for removing 14 Christmas trees last week in response to a rabbi's threat of a federal lawsuit, began reinstalling the displays Monday night.
| It was all smiles and cheers as Christmas trees were rolled into the terminal after being taken down due to the threat of a lawsuit at Sea-Tac Airport on Monday. | ||
The decision came shortly after Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky told port officials that his organization would not file the suit to get an 8-foot menorah added to the public display, ending a flap that Port Commissioner Alec Fisken said made Seattle "an international joke."
Port Chairwoman Pat Davis expressed relief that the situation was resolved without Bogomilsky resorting to litigation.
"He pulled that stinger out, and it's wonderful," she said.
Davis said Bogomilsky never asked the port to remove the "holiday trees" -- the agency's staff does not refer to them as Christmas trees -- and expressed appreciation for the rabbi's willingness to work with the Port and other community and religious leaders to develop a plan for next year's holiday decorations at the airport.
Bogomilsky, director of Northwest Friends of Chabad-Lubavitch, a Hasidic Orthodox group, reiterated Monday that he never asked the airport to remove the Christmas trees and had no intention of offending anyone. In withdrawing the threat of litigation, he said, "the word 'lawsuit' is a tremendously bad word."
"I think the whole thing is ridiculous and really out of proportion," Bogomilsky said shortly before the port made its announcement to reinstall the trees. "People should turn to the Port of Seattle and say, 'Wait a minute, what are you doing? Return the trees and give people the spirit of the holiday back.' Right now, nobody's happy."
Bogomilsky's day started at 5 a.m. Monday and lasted until the evening, with requests for interviews from CNN, Bill O'Reilly and virtually every local news outlet and talk show host. He sometimes held two phones to his ears at the same time.
The flap reverberated on simmering Internet forums, where irate observers labeled Bogomilsky a "grinch" and called the Port Commission "spineless," among other colorful adjectives.
Davis said the firestorm produced a public outcry from people of all faiths for the port to reinstall the trees. Some groups also said that if the port accommodated the rabbi's request, they also would expect "special treatment."
"I didn't want to set a precedent, frankly, that when anyone makes a threat, we fold," Davis said.
Bogomilsky said he raised the threat of a suit to get a menorah added, but only after getting "stonewalled" by the agency for weeks after a port consultant, Mitchell Stein, made an initial verbal request in mid-or late October. Port spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt said a formal request came in mid-November.
 | ||
 | Joshua Trujillo / P-I | |
| Employees applaud as Christmas trees are put back up at Sea-Tac on Monday. | ||
But when Bogomilsky threatened to sue, the commission had only 18 hours to respond, Betancourt said, leading it to direct staff to remove the trees instead of simply adding a menorah as Bogomilsky had requested.
Fisken, who also is a strategic policy adviser for the city of Seattle, earlier Monday proposed a practical end to the brouhaha. His solution: "We ought to put up a tree, menorah and Kwanzaa display. That's what we've had in City Hall, and it doesn't cause a problem."
E-mail messages and other comments to the Port of Seattle were running 99 to 1 in opposition to the removal of the Christmas trees, Port Commissioner John Creighton said.
"As a public officials, we need to do the right thing, not the popular thing," he said. "In this case, I think the right thing is the popular thing."
The tree removal marked an unprecedented interruption to a longstanding holiday tradition at the airport. But the question of whether a menorah should be displayed publicly is hardly new to organizations of local Jews; neither is there agreement in the Jewish community over the practice.
Although some irate people criticized Jews in general for the actions of Bogomilsky, "most of the Jewish community does not really support the putting up of public menorahs," said Rabbi Anson Laytner, executive director of the greater Seattle chapter of the American Jewish Committee.
"It does raise, in spite of the Supreme Court ruling (allowing public displays of the Jewish candelabrum), significant church/ state issues in our minds," he said. "And in this case, it became a lightning rod for hostilities that otherwise would not be brought to the surface."
Several Jewish organizations said they had heard harsh reactions to Bogomilsky's requests, so much so that the Anti-Defamation League recommended that any concerned synagogues or groups hire extra security during Hanukkah events. The Jewish holiday starts at sundown Friday.
| adl | ||
| Trees were put back up at Sea-Tac on Monday. | ||
"The last thing we want is for the trees to taken down," said Robert Jacobs, director of the ADL's Pacific Northwest Region. "This is the time we should be celebrating that we're such a cosmopolitan community."
Bogomilsky said the response to his request has been staggering. "I've gotten thousands and thousands -- it's not an exaggeration -- of e-mails in the last 48 hours," he said. "Here and there, you get a lot of positive calls. Unfortunately, there's been a lot of negative responses -- 'the rabbi that ruined Christmas.' It's not our intention. It's not what our organization represents."
His branch of Judaism, Chabad-Lubavitch, has grown into a philosophy, movement and an organization since its inception about 250 years ago in Russia. The branch emphasizes "Jewish education, providing opportunities for Jewish people everywhere to celebrate the holidays, learning their heritage, reaching the unaffiliated and enriching the affiliated," said Rabbi Mordechai Farkash of Eastside Torah Center in Bellevue.
Chabad-Lubavitch is the Jewish group that has arranged for menorahs to be placed in public settings in at least 17 Western Washington sites, including Westlake Park, University Village, Seattle Center, Northgate Mall and seven places on the Eastside.
Decades ago, the local Jewish community held huge discussions on whether to support public menorahs, Laytner said, and most groups "agreed to disagree" with Chabad-Lubavitch. Laytner said most Jews see Christmas trees as a symbol of Christmas, but not explicitly religious.
A menorah, on the other hand, is associated with Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, a holiday that commemorates the miraculous supply of oil that kept the menorah burning in the temple of Jerusalem after its recapture from Syrian rulers in about 165 B.C.
Farkash said that in nation where Christians are the majority, "the menorah symbolizes the freedom of religion," and the opportunity for Jews to "publicize the miracle."
By contrast, the port staff's reluctance to use the word "Christmas" left Davis nonplussed.
"I'm telling everyone 'Merry Christmas,'" she said, "but I guess I'm politically incorrect."
P-I reporter John Iwasaki can be reached at 206-448-8096 or johniwasaki@seattlepi.com.
© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
No comments:
Post a Comment