More conflict over expressions of faith in the (literal) public square, this time from a less-expected angle: a Jewish group’s recent plans to erect a sukkah in a public park in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Manhattan has generated opposition from the local community board.
The traditional structure, constructed every year after Yom Kippur and maintained through the Sukkoth holiday, commemorates the makeshift dwellings Jews lived in while fleeing from Egypt to Israel. Many sukkot are constructed on private property (in people’s backyards, or outside a temple, for instance), but Rabbi Zalman Paris, in daring to ask for a public display, drew the ire of the community. Especially amusing is the way Julie Menin, head of the local community board, attempted to justify her opposition:
. . . some in the community were opposed to it because of the fact that Duane Park is an extremely small park and because Friends of Duane Park had an event to come and some were concerned about the religious use of a public park.
In short: it’s really about keeping an expression of faith away from the general public, but let me deflect this issue by citing a few other trivial concerns. (Funny, it might also be noted, that in her drive to downplay the stand she’s taking against religious symbols, the usually sacred “separation of church and state” gets reduced to one other item in a laundry list of concerns).
Happily, the local Chabad found another site for the sukkah on an empty lot a few blocks away, although even this settlement comes with a raft of restrictions:
The owner agreed to remove cars and other materials stored on the lot, but insisted that Chabad have insurance, a place for bathrooms, weekend staffing and restrict visiting hours to 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
. . . good thing they’ve taken precautions against the late-night rowdiness religious pilgrims are known to engender. Sounds like a completely fair solution.
September 28th, 2011 | 11:23 am
Just FYI, the plural of sukkah is sukkot.
September 28th, 2011 | 11:41 am
Matthew Cantirino:
It is amazing how you take something wholly positive and distort it into something negative. You say, “Especially amusing is the way Julie Menin, head of the local community board, attempted to justify her opposition. . . . Happily, the local Chabad found another site for the sukkah on an empty lot a few blocks away. . . . ” In fact, it was Julie Menin herself who found a larger space for the sukkah. Friends of Duane Park agreed to pay the bill for weekend staffing of the new site. And the Rabbi said, “It felt like the whole TriBeCa is like a sukkah. People coming together and finding solutions, lots of different people offering support.” The board didn’t even need to vote, because the chairwoman of the board, whom you mock, made arrangements with which all were pleased before a vote was even taken.
There’s the old cliche about when life gives you a lemon, you should make lemonade. In your case, you’re trying to turn lemonade back into a lemon so you can make sour comments.
September 28th, 2011 | 11:53 am
David,
This situation is definitely not “wholly positive” – that would have been the case if the community board allowed construction of the sukkah in the park in the first place. Instead, they made sure to register their complaints about it (including a halfhearted invocation of the First Amendment along with some other lame excuses), and were preparing to deny the Chabad permission. Then, after the issue starts getting media attention, the board “arranges” an alternative site with some pretty heavy restrictions and tries to take credit for saving the project. The only people who “distorted” this were those on the community board.
September 28th, 2011 | 12:31 pm
Matthew,
The Tribeca committee vote was 2 in support, 1 opposed, and 2 abstentions. The issue had to be debated before the full Community Board. The debate was to be yesterday, but it never took place, because the matter had been settled. I can find no news account saying Community Board 1 was planning to vote against the construction of the sukkah. Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, was urging the board to vote in favor.
September 28th, 2011 | 1:20 pm
I concede that there’s no way of knowing for certain how a vote of the whole Community Board might have turned out, but the opposition was mounting. One of the abstention votes criticized the proposal, and another only supported it after being assured that no “religious ritual” would take place. Others involved in the process, including one member of the Friends of Duane Park Committee, categorically rejected all religious symbols from this space: “…we don’t advocate the permitting of religious activities,” said Friends board member Karie Parker Davidson. “There was an application for a Christmas tree sometime back and we said, ‘No, we’d rather not.’” See more reactions from before the ‘compromise’ was announced here: http://www.tribecatrib.com/news/2011/september/1106_debate-brews-over-whether-city-should-permit-a-sukkah-in-tribecas-duane-park.html
The larger issue here is why this is an issue at all, requiring multiple rounds of voting and news coverage and “grand compromises.” Why do so many people feel threatened by the construction of a 12′ tent on public parkland, and imagine the only options re: religion in the public square to be either a Cromwellian theocracy or a rigid, dull, completely exception-less adherence to naked space?
September 28th, 2011 | 5:13 pm
Why do so many people feel threatened by the construction of a 12′ tent on public parkland, and imagine the only options re: religion in the public square to be either a Cromwellian theocracy or a rigid, dull, completely exception-less adherence to naked space?
The people who object to a religious display are the same people who want their own religion – humanism (aka Unitarian Universalism) – to be THE state ideologically, officially sanctioned and endorsed.
The only way they can achieve this goal is by framing their beliefs as the “truth”, as opposed to those other beliefs which are merely superstition (unlike their belief, which involves NO element of faith at all, but only fact).
This phenomenon actually has a name: it is called the “myth of mythlessness”.
September 30th, 2011 | 10:56 am
It seems like this case is less about discrimination against religion and more about playing the victim card no matter what.
Does this park allow anyone else to construct displays in it without prior approval? Usually most parks will allow groups to have events no matter what the content provided they get a permit first and abide by non-content related restrictions (cleanup, crowd control, etc.). Parks do not usually allow you to deposit exhibits for display except with special permission for a rather obvious reason: They take up space and esp. if you’re running a small park that is an issue. Events take up space too but the permitting process usually makes up for that by charging fees and limiting how much time a park can be tied up by private groups.
September 30th, 2011 | 2:48 pm
Boonton the issue is not that they had to get a permit, the issue was that there was a question of the permit being denied, and actual opposition from the council, on spurious grounds (that allowing someone to put up a tent has anything to do with the First Amendment.)
October 1st, 2011 | 11:23 am
1. No permit was ever denied.
2. Only one councilwoman expressed qualms and only hinted that she might vote no. 2/3 of her issues had nothing to do with religion (the park being too small plus the other group that had planned to start their fund raising tour from that spot beforehand). While her religious establish qualm was not well phrased, it is IMO legitimate for a community board to question whether tying up a park for a week for what is essentially a private religious service is a good idea. Community boards all the time vote to approve or deny applications for displays and so on at the public parks. If its forbidden to even suggest that one out of several may dare to vote ‘no’ then what exactly is the point of having a vote to begin with?
3. I know there’s absolutely no need for me to Google what commentators here were saying about the Park 51 project, the Muslim cultural center proposed for a privately owned building not so far from this park. I know not a single commentator here who advocates an unbounded entitlement for religious use of pubic parks expressed anything but utter and complete contempt for those advocating trying to use the power of local gov’t to stop a private religious group the right to use their own property. I’m not even going to check, I know such inconsistency would never tarnish any of the characters of the commentators here.
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