The War on Christmas was a bit overblown, though it provided some excellent entertainment, especially when Donald Trump invoked it in some of his early campaign material. That’s not to say it’s a fake issue, but still—it’s not something that I would consider a centerpiece of the culture war today. What is a more pressing issue is political correctness and higher education’s allergic reaction to offending anyone. The irony is, as we’ve seen over the past few weeks, that these institutions don’t want to offend anyone unless they’re Jewish. Pro-Hamas antics have permeated college campuses.
Yet, to our neighbors to the north in Canada, one student had a simple request: display a menorah. Rachel Cook, a Jewish student at the University of Alberta, wanted it during the celebration of Hanukkah. The school then opted to remove all holiday decorations, which was a move Cook did not want or suggest.
Cook has offered comment to various publications who reported on this incident earlier this month.
She told Townhall, “I requested that the University of Alberta Faculty of Law display a menorah in our Law Student lounge, alongside the Christmas trees and other festive decorations. The Vice Dean of the Law Centre responded to my request by removing the Christmas trees and leaving only what he termed ‘festively secular’ decorations.”
The gross overcorrection by the University of Alberta shocked her.
“It saddens me that in these dark times of rising on campus antisemitism, the response of the administration was to target Christians enjoying Christmas, instead of embracing the spirt of inclusivity and displaying a menorah too. The reaction of the university should be to welcome more light - not removing it.”
There’s also another reason why she felt her school essentially canceled the holidays (via Edmonton Journal):
“I got an email from the vice dean (telling me) ‘No trees either, we’re going to take all those down because of your concerns,’ ” she said. “That’s when I responded, ‘But I don’t have concerns, I actually find them quite pretty. I just wanted to display a menorah.’ ”
She is also confused why Christmas trees meet the faculty’s definition of a non-secular symbol while other decorations, like garlands, do not.
“They’ve decided now the secular line is that if it’s nature-themed and lying flat, that’s secular. But if it’s in tree form (it’s religious),” she said.
Cook believes the faculty removed the trees because it does not want to display what it sees — in her view, incorrectly — as an endorsement of Israel.
At Harvard, there is a menorah display, but it had to be removed at night out of fear of vandalism and other hooligan antics from anti-Israel and pro-terrorist clowns who have infested the campus. President Claudine Gay, who infamously couldn’t denounce or even say that chants in support of Jewish genocide constitute harassment and a violation of the campus code, attended a menorah lighting ceremony, though used a tiki torch, which was another item that’s been ruined by white nationalists. In 2017, these neo-Nazis gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, holding tiki torches, chanting “Jews will not replace us.” You cannot make this up.
Cook has zero issues with the Christmas holiday and warned that such overreactions only further inflame tensions on campus.
“I do not have a problem with Christmas trees,” she added. “And the administration placing the blame on a Jewish student for their removal further stokes antisemitic tensions on campus.”
Christmas and Hanukkah were celebrated in proximity this year. The latter recently ending on the 15th of December. But even if it was earlier this year, a Christmas tree and a menorah are usually seen displayed together. If Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights can show this, along with other cities and towns across the United States and Canada, the University of Alberta could have managed it.
As with any of these cases, the irony is that the university’s moves to not be offensive ended up being immensely displeasing. Cook said that no student she had spoken with about the menorah display was triggered about the request.