Great Barrington — After some debate at their regular meeting on Monday, December 1, the Selectboard rejected a request to display an electric menorah at Castronova Park where the “GB” hedge is located. Instead, the board agreed to display the menorah in front of Town Hall.
Chabad of the Berkshires Executive Director Rabbi Levi Volovik brought the request before the Selectboard on behalf of the organization. “For many years, Chabad, the largest Jewish organization in the world, with over 6,000 branches worldwide, has brought the joys of Chanukah to communities across the country,” Volovik wrote in a letter to the board before the meeting. “Through public menorah lightings in malls, parks, and shopping centers, Chabad has attracted thousands of participants, received significant media attention, and welcomed the participation of government officials and community leaders alike.”
The organization proposed the park as the location of a Chanukah celebration, with an electric menorah installed around December 10 to remain in place through December 30.
“Here in the Berkshires, we’ve been placing the menorah in Lilac Park in Lenox for many years with the full support of the town,” Volovik told the Selectboard at the December 1 meeting. “It has brought families together, added warmth to the season, and has never created any issues, only joy. We would love to bring the same spirit of light to Great Barrington.”
Volovik added that displaying the menorah in the town’s public park would not constitute “a religious endorsement.” “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled decades ago that a menorah displayed in a civic setting is a cultural and seasonal symbol similar to other holiday displays,” he said, citing the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case Allegheny County v. ACLU.
“For us, the Menorah symbolizes light over darkness and triumph of hope,” Volovik said. “A message that resonates with people of all backgrounds and enriches the season for everyone. The display is temporary, not intrusive, and comes at no cost to the town.”
Selectboard member Philip Orenstein asked Volovik about the size of the electric menorah. Volovik responded that it was approximately six to nine feet tall and six to nine feet wide.
“That’s tall,” Orenstein said in response.
Selectboard member Eric Gabriel spoke against displaying the electric menorah at Castronova Park. “The ‘GB’ area is part of our [town] entrance, and I like to keep things in their natural state,” he said. “I am hesitant to allow anything to go into the park there. This falls similar to my feelings about banners going over Railroad Street and stuff like that. I feel that this is something that the town should take into consideration because once we start putting any sort of displays in our parks and stuff, then we will have to allow for all [religious displays] up.”
Gabriel added that the “GB” hedges in Castronova Park are “an iconic scene.” “I like the way it looks now, and I think certain things need to stay the same,” he said. “Once you start having stuff put up there, and then it can keep continuing. Sooner or later, I feel that there will be something taken away from the ‘GB’ [hedges] area there. I just like that being the focal point that are American flags and flags in the state there.”
Selectboard member Ben Elliott proposed a compromise to Gabriel, with the menorah instead displayed in front of Town Hall next to the town’s Christmas tree. “I think I know what you are saying about it affecting the aesthetic of the park, but we already have a holiday display here in front of Town Hall,” he told Gabriel. “We’ll be having a holiday celebration [tree] lighting as part of the Holiday Stroll on December 13.”
Selectboard Chair Steve Bannon said that, typically, a menorah is lit in front of Town Hall as part of the Christmas tree lighting celebrations during the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce’s Holiday Shop, Sip, and Stroll event. However, he acknowledged that the menorah is only at Town Hall for the duration of the Christmas tree lighting event.
Selectboard member Garfield Reed called the planned electric menorah “too large and too big.” “I think if we need to put one [religious symbol] up we need to put them all,” he said. “I don’t have a problem with people coming into our town and seeing that. But my feeling is that, if you come into town and see the menorah, you see Kwanzaa, if you see typical Christian values up there, it shows that our town is pretty open, and that we like celebrating all people that are here. I do think [the size of the menorah] is too big. I think it needs to be three feet because six to nine feet is huge, and it will dominate everything.”
As part of the informational packet for the December 1 Selectboard meeting, Town Manager Liz Hartsgrove provided guidance of holiday decorations to municipalities from KP Law.
Orenstein referred to the guidance and proposed that the board defer any decision on the electric menorah for a year “to give Liz the time to sort of fully coordinate this over a longer period of time leading up to the holiday period.”
“Garfield, you would feel better about including the menorah along with the other religious symbols of the holiday season [on display at the park], which makes perfect sense,” Orenstein said. “But I don’t know if that’s doable at this late date. I would prefer to push this off for this year and reconsider this for the fall of next year.”
Bannon said he did not agree and referred to the next item on the meeting’s agenda, which was reviewing a request from Larkin LTD of Great Barrington to hang holiday signs from light poles on Railroad Street.
“Are we going to be consistent? Because these banners are not wreaths,” Bannon said. “They say, ‘Merry Christmas.”
“I think that’s something that we’ve done for the last several years,” Orenstein said. “Some of [the banners] say, ‘Seasons Greetings’, ‘Holiday Greetings,’ and ‘Merry Christmas’. They are something that has already been accepted and blended into our holiday decorations in town. I feel much, much more comfortable with that.”
“You think we can put ‘Merry Christmas’ up, but we can’t put up a menorah?” Bannon asked Orenstein. “That does not make me feel welcome in this town. That makes me feel very unwelcome. I think we have to be consistent, and I think we’re saying to a certain part of the population that they’re not welcome in this town.”
Eventually, the board circled back to Elliott’s suggestion and unanimously agreed to display the electric menorah in front of Town Hall next to the town’s Christmas tree.
As for the proposal from Larkin LTD for the Christmas-related banners on Railroad Street, no representative from the company attended the December 1 meeting. Due to the lack of attendance from company representatives, the Selectboard did not make a decision on the proposal.
