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The Menorah is a minor religious symbol and does not hold the same status in Judaism as the cross does in Christianity. The Torah is probably about as important to Jews as the cross is to Christians, and the Torah is not regularly displayed in public spaces.
It's true that Menorahs on public grounds have always been culture war, but I think everything else in your post is gross exaggeration.
I wouldn't kick up about menorahs, it's at least an attempt to find a compatible religious festival for the same time. I more dislike the very secular versions to replace Christmas, but I've learned to tolerate them (at least round where I am, where there isn't really the effort to dislodge Christmas as "it's a religious festival and so offensive!")
Lot better than the stupid Satanist crap. At least the Book of Maccabees has war elephants, which are always cool.
(The Satanists are indeed entitled to put up stupid crap for holidays, like anyone else. But this doesn't even pretend to be anything but a sneer at Christians; it's not even trying to celebrate Sol Invictus or anything similar. I'll take a third-rate but genuine religious memorial over 'ha ha ain't we so clever?' stunts any day).
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The menorah is a more ancient symbol of Judaism than the Star of David. It's the symbol of the Mossad... Saying it is "a minor religious symbol" is not only untrue but doesn't even challenge the point I'm making. It is a religious symbol of Judaism (can you name any symbols more important than the menorah? You say "the Torah" which is a book and not even a symbol per se...) so it doesn't belong on public lands if our laws were fairly interpreted.
Mossad has a menorah on their logo because Israel has a menorah on their emblem/coat of arms.
The real question is, what does the seven branch menorah have to do with Hanukkah?
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I'm trying to challenge your statement:
I don't see how you can argue that a "traditional Christmas display" (such as the angels/trumpets linked in the OP, or the still common nativity scenes) is "fully secularized" while a Menorah is not. My point is that the Menorah has no more significance in Judaism than these symbols have in Christianity, and I'd even argue it is much more minor than something like the nativity.
Christmas is fully integrated as part of the general Civic Religion. Every atheist I know celebrates Christmas with a Christmas tree etc. I agree angels are more debatable, sure ban them too. But a Christmas tree is a symbol of a civic ritual, Christianity will decline but Christmas will continue to grow bigger than ever.
A Menorah has far more religious symbolism than a Christmas tree, which is clearly inspired from Pagan rituals and has no symbolic relation to Christianity at all.
A Christmas tree is genuinely a secular symbol, a menorah is not a secular symbol. The menorah is literally the centerpiece of the official emblem of the State of Israel, it is not secular at all.
Christmas trees came about in the 1500s in the Baltics and are decidedly Lutheran in origin. The notion that Christmas is merely a rebranded pagan holiday (Yule or Saturnalia) is anti-Christian propaganda.
Other than Santa Claus*, Reindeer, and Snowflakes, all major Christmas symbols are directly Christian (decorated Christmas trees, Angels, Star of Bethlehem)
*(and even then Saint Nicholas, is obviously, a link to Christianity)
I think this is bullshit. I've read the arguments, I know what historians think about this and I'm still convinced their arguments are weak.
There is no logical reason you would decorate an evergreen tree to celebrate the birth of the son of god, which happened in a cave and involved no trees at all. The christmas log is an even better example, somehow there's local customs, spread from the uk to turkey relating to a magical chunk of wood. Where does that come from? Turns out, nowhere. It just starts getting mentioned out of nowhere. Same thing with the christmas tree, at some point it just starts existing for no logical reason.
I think there are two explanations, one is that they are pre-christian traditions that survived underground until they re-emerged at some point (it doesn't even have to be that much underground, it just needs to be a topic that wasn't recorded in writing). Or they are new traditions that don't have anything to do with christianity, a sort of repaganization of europe.
It's hard to tell which is the case because the christian middle ages didn't bother keeping a record of pagan european tradition.
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I don't think Christmas is a rebranded pagan holiday that is now Christian, it's a rebranded Christian holiday that is now pagan. The mythos around Santa Claus and Christmas, very little of it has anything to do with Christianity. A Christmas tree holds no religious significance, it marks participation in the dyonisian winter festivities that have always featured in Indo-European civilization with many commonalities. The entire Christmas aesthetic is fundamentally pagan and hyperborean, with the Nativity as the exception. The rest of it is absolutely secular.
Santa Claus is not a saint, he's an immortal pagan god, and a goofy god at that.
I get my mother a Santa Claus figurine each year.
I will be shopping for the "IMMORTAL PAGAN GOD" version this year. Thank you.
Don't worry, you have plenty of examples to choose from.
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There's actually a lesson there... pagans viewed their gods like we view Santa Claus. We don't "worship" Santa Claus in that we formulate religion around having a personal relationship with Santa Claus, like we need Santa to redeem our fallen souls, and we don't demand that participants in Christmas literally believe in the Santa lore.
The Christian perspective and worship of Jesus is not like the way the Romans worshipped their gods. The Romans had collective civic rituals, lore, superstitions, festivities surrounding their gods, much like we do Santa Claus, but they did not demand a belief in their literal existence and stories like Christians do for Jesus. It was about Civic Ritual.
Christmas is fundamentally pagan precisely because the way that we honor Santa Claus as a benevolent god in lore, myth, family ritual, and civic society mirrors the way the Romans honored their own gods and stands in complete contrast to the Christian worship of Jesus Christ.
They demanded civic rituals precisely because they believed in their gods' literal existence. "Ivppitter is going to punish our city for insufficient piety if we don't get our newest conquests to venerate him along with their own god, what was his name, Iehova?"
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You've never written a letter to Santa, or been told to be good or else you'll be on the naughty list?
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Oh, so it’s a state symbol. Problem solved.
Really, the easiest route here is just to get atheists placing menorahs. Then it will have the “fully integrated” status.
It's a religious symbol embraced as being emblematic, literally, of the Jewish state which is currently engaged in an ethnic cleansing of occupied land. It's not secular. A Christmas tree is secular.
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