Harvard Prevents Jewish Celebration

The inboxes of Harvard first-years last week contained two mass e-mail messages about this holiday season. One, from the Freshman Dean's Office, reminded us that we are not allowed to light Hannukah menorahs anywhere in the dorms except at specially authorized Hillel candle-lighting ceremonies in common rooms. The other, from the dorms manager, listed regulations for Christmas trees, Christmas lights and other seasonal decorations.

The no-menorahs rule is an extension of the fire prevention, no-candles policy applied to all Harvard housing. Yet, if you turn on a television or open up a family magazine in December, the newscasts and articles aren't warning people about the dangers of menorahs. Instead they are warning people about the dangers of Christmas trees and lights--how they so often are the cause of disastrous fires. Even the e-mail to first-years stated that Christmas trees dry out very quickly and create a major fire hazard to all residents of a building. So, why does the College permit students to string electrical wires around windows and over dead tinder--leaving them there 24 hours a day for a whole month--at the same time that it does not permit Jewish students to responsibly light and watch over menorahs for one hour on each of the eight nights of Hannukah? Is the College so sure that menorahs are a worse fire hazard?

Certainly Harvard believes that it isn't asking Jewish students to sacrifice that much. After all, electric menorahs are available and recommended, and Christian students also have to forego lighted Advent wreaths. Admittedly, that's annoying for them, but how many were actually planning to have Advent wreaths anyway? In contrast, the menorah is a necessary possession of practicing Jews. When Hannukah originated over 2,100 years ago, the Israelites miraculously annihilated the armies of Antiochus and then miraculously had enough pure oil to keep the menorah in the otherwise destroyed Temple burning for eight days. Jews have been kindling menorahs at Hannukah for centuries and centuries. Traditional Jewish law even commands us to do it--most preferably in the place where we live.

But singing the Hebrew blessings and screwing a flame-colored bulb into a plastic candelabrum sitting on my dresser, as Harvard advises, doesn't really complete the ritual for me. Some years, my family has packed a menorah and candles on overseas vacations because the practice of lighting it is so religiously symbolic and important to us. Christmas lights and trees, on the other hand, are traditional but not mandated by Christian teaching. They are pretty and sentimental but without direct religious symbolism.

Jewish students are supposed to be satisfied that they can attend public menorah lightings at a different time each evening in freshman dorms and upperclass houses. Hillel is doing what it can to provide us with Hannukah as we knew it at home, but once again, Harvard is dictating how we observe our holidays. It started with the first-year move-in being scheduled on the two days of Rosh Hashanah (or should I say Rosh Hashanah being scheduled on first-year move-in?). The families of Jewish first-years--300 or 400 in all--had to attempt to welcome the Jewish new year in the prescribed manner, while at the same time settling their children into college for the first time. Despite the early and late move in times available to Jewish students, barely any of us managed to spend the holiday in synagogue as we are supposed to. Our parents, meanwhile, missed out on both synagogue prayers and gatherings with friends and relatives. Eight days later, fresh off the 26-hour fast of Yom Kippur, I, like every other Jewish first-year, had to shove down my break-the-fast meal and then rush off to a required Yard meeting that started a half-hour late anyway. Now, for the third time this year, Harvard is restricting how I celebrate a Jewish holiday.

I don't allege that the College is anti-Semitic. I simply think that it is too rigidly fixed in its ways--not a revelation to anyone. If Harvard is so concerned about fires, then both menorahs and Christmas trees should be banned from individual rooms. As matters stand, however, Harvard is hypocritical when it encourages us to open our minds to the diversity around us, because it refuses to do the same. Instead, it unevenly limits celebrations of light in this holiday season.

Sarah J. Ramer is a first-year in Greenough Hall.