Merry Christmas, all!
Yesterday Dennis Prager cited the following article on his radio show:
Susan Rosenbluth and fellow Orthodox Jews yesterday came to Maplewood, N.J., to join a crowd of more than 100 carolers in singing Christmas and Hanukkah songs in front of Columbia High School.
Holiday hymns were sung in response to school policies that Steve Lonegan -- the Republican mayor of nearby Bogota, N.J., who organized the event -- called "intolerance" toward traditional religious beliefs.
The carolers showed up outside the school, which held its annual holiday music program last night, to protest a South Orange/Maplewood School District ban on religious songs at schools in this community across the Hudson River from New York.
"The greatest works of art in Western civilization are inspired by religious -- predominantly Christian -- convictions," said Mrs. Rosenbluth, editor of Jewish Voice and Opinion, an Englewood-based monthly.
"We are religious Jews who believe Western civilization is the heritage of all of our children in the United States," Mrs. Rosenbluth said, explaining why she and other Orthodox Jews joined the protest.
[…]
He, Mrs. Rosenbluth and about 200 fellow carolers, all in high spirits, sang such traditional tunes as "Silent Night," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Joy to the World" -- as well as "Come Light the Menorah" and "I Have a Little Dreydl."
[…]
Mr. Lonegan called the school district's prohibition of traditional Christmas music "the ultimate demonstration of intolerance by a small minority of people who appear to be offended by the very core values that the vast majority of Americas live by -- Jews, Moslems, Christian, who all believe in one God."
What a wonderful protest. How it does good for my heart this Christmas season. How I wish I could have been there to add my voice to theirs.
Jews and Christians should have no greater friends than one another. When the ACLU tries to wield lawsuits as a wrecking ball against Christians, Christian organizations, or Christian ideals, devout adherents to Judaism should be arm and arm, defending their Christian brothers. When anti-Semitism rears its ugly head in its innumerable forms, Christians should be front and center, denouncing bigotry against their Jewish brothers.
I'm neither a Jew, nor an adherent of Judaism (except as it forms a foundation for my Protestant faith)—yet to me a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv is as a terrorist attack in Washington D.C. He who strikes Israel, strikes me.