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When Religious Symbols are Banished, Jews Should Worry
By Stephen M. Flatow
Orthodox Jews know what it means to live as a religious minority in America.
We know that the public calendar is not built around our holidays. We know that December in America looks and sounds very different from Kislev and Tevet in the Jewish home. We know that Christmas trees, carols and nativity scenes have long occupied a place in American civic and cultural life.
And yet most of us also know the difference between recognition and coercion.
A Christmas tree in a town square does not make us Christians. A statue of a saint outside a firehouse does not force us into a church. A reference to God on a public seal does not strip Jews of religious liberty. The real threat to Jewish life in America is not the existence of religious symbols in public. The real threat is a legal and cultural theory that treats religion itself as something improper, embarrassing or dangerous whenever it steps outside the private home or sanctuary.
That is why a case now before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court should concern Jews far beyond Massachusetts.
The city of Quincy commissioned two statues for its police and fire building: St. Florian, long associated with firefighters, and the Archangel Michael, long associated with courage and protection. A lower court ordered them removed from public view, accepting the argument that their presence amounted to an improper endorsement of Catholicism.
But that argument misses something essential about America.
Religious symbols often carry more than one meaning. Moses is not only a biblical prophet; he is also a symbol of law. The Ten Commandments are not only a sacred text; they are also part of the moral vocabulary that shaped Western legal thought. A menorah is not only a ritual object; it is also a symbol of Jewish survival, freedom and the triumph of light over tyranny.
If courts begin treating every religiously rooted symbol as constitutionally suspect, Jews should not applaud. We should worry.
Because a doctrine that begins by banishing Christian symbols will not end by protecting Jewish ones. The menorah in a public square, the Hebrew Bible in a courthouse display, a Holocaust memorial with biblical language, a public commemoration invoking Jerusalem, a municipal recognition of Jewish heritage—all can become vulnerable once religion itself is treated as an impermissible civic presence.
That is not pluralism. That is enforced amnesia.
Religious Zionists understand the power of symbols. A flag matters. A mezuzah matters. Hebrew letters matter. Jerusalem matters. A nation’s memory is carried not only in laws and speeches, but in the signs, monuments and ceremonies through which it tells its story.
America has a story, too. It is not the story of an established church. Jews have every reason to reject that. But neither is America’s story one of hostility to religion. The American promise has been that different faith communities may live openly, build institutions, observe their traditions and contribute their moral language to the public square without demanding that others surrender theirs.
That is why the old demand for a “naked public square” has always been wrong. It does not create neutrality. It creates a public culture in which secularism enjoys pride of place and religion is told to sit quietly in the back of the room.
Orthodox Jews should be especially sensitive to this. We ask for accommodation for Shabbat and holidays. We ask that yeshivas and day schools be treated fairly. We ask that kosher food, eruvin, synagogue security and religious dress be understood not as exotic demands, but as normal features of American religious liberty.
How can we make that case if we endorse a legal theory that says religious expression is welcome only when it is invisible?
The question is not whether Jews should celebrate Christian symbols. We do not. The question is whether we should defend a civic order broad enough to allow religious symbols to exist without panic. A confident Jewish community does not need to erase other faiths from public view in order to preserve its own identity.
Indeed, Jewish history should make us cautious about any movement that insists religion must retreat from public life. Jews have not flourished under regimes that demanded the privatization of faith. We have flourished where religious liberty meant more than freedom to pray quietly behind closed doors.
There is, of course, a line. Government may not compel religious observance. It may not establish a church. It may not favor one faith by burdening another. Those principles are vital, and Jews have depended on them.
But there is also a line in the other direction. Government should not be forced to pretend that religious traditions have played no role in the lives of its citizens, its police officers, its firefighters, its lawmakers or its communities.
A statue associated with firefighters’ courage does not become unconstitutional because the figure also has religious meaning. A menorah should not be driven from a public square because it is unmistakably Jewish. A society that cannot distinguish acknowledgment from establishment is not protecting liberty. It is draining public life of meaning.
For the Religious Zionist community, this issue should resonate deeply. We believe faith is not merely a private sentiment. It shapes duty, sacrifice, education, family, national memory and public responsibility. We know that a healthy society does not ask religious citizens to check their deepest commitments at the courthouse door.
Jews should therefore defend religious liberty not only when the symbol is Jewish, but when it is not. That is the test of real pluralism.
The public square in America should be neither a church nor a synagogue. But it should not be a warehouse for every symbol that makes someone uncomfortable.
A generous republic can make room for a Christmas tree and a menorah, for Moses and Michael, for civic prayer and religious difference. That generosity has helped Jews build one of the most successful diaspora communities in history.
We should be very careful before helping dismantle it.
Stephen M. Flatow is president of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”
