Not really. But I did take issue with my colleague Yair Rosenberg’s characterization of a Milwaukee kerfuffle (involving a public school, a sukkah, the definition of the separation of church and state, and the role of the local Jewish Federation). I read the piece while sitting in a miasma of bleach at a Brooklyn hair salon, read the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article that Yair used as his source material, and emailed the powers-that-be at Tablet that I wanted to do a rebuttal. By the time my new lavender-white streak was done, I’d written a response.
What Yair sees as a sinister, demoralizing, defeatist move by Federation I see as a triumph of collaboration and democracy in action. WHOO.
Not Nicolet kids’ sukkah. Our sukkah. Which is ALSO at a private home and not a public school.
A thought-provoking piece (and a gorgeous sukkah photo – friends here in Cali did sukkahs one year and they used palm branches and I thought, “Yeah, it’s cute, but who’s going to live in that? This looks doable… I mean, furniture…)
I’m of the type with the train of thought that leans more to, “Oh, but let’s let EVERYONE celebrate their religions all together!” But you’re right — that’s not what our law supports in a public school. I think my first impulse is freedom to practice all religions because I never went to a public institution — ever. Not even for grad school (although it wasn’t a religious school anymore after the 19th century). There, sure – let’s all be Buddhists for a week, or Hindu or whatever and explore it — because that’s what we’re doing there, in a religious school (not that anyone would have supported my personal quest to be Hindu… we were Christians AND NOTHING ELSE, thank you).
My husband keeps a finger on religious liberty issues and writes brief articles on them for church, and the thing which baffles a lot of people is how often he writes that we need to support everyone’s right to freedom from religion. Many – especially of evangelical faiths – really don’t quite get that. I agree – this is how democracy is SUPPOSED to work.