Religious symbols and reminders of religious freedom: My purchase of a menorah

I announced to my family a few weeks ago that I was going to purchase a menorah. They looked at me kind of funny, wondering why I, being a Christian, would do such a thing. But as I was reading about Hanukkah (or Chanukah), I was struck by the symbolism of the menorah and its relationship to religious freedom. Although it is not a part of my religion, it still bears some sacredness for me.

The story goes like this: In 175 BCE, Antiochus IV, the Syrian king of the Seleucid Empire, invaded Jerusalem and recaptured Jerusalem. His soldiers plundered and looted the temple, putting a stop to further temple worship. The practice of Judaism was outlawed, which prompted the successful Maccabean revolt in 165 BCE and the subsequent rededication of the temple.

According to wikipedia: "The festival of Hanukkah was instituted by Judah Maccabee and his brothers to celebrate this event. After recovering Jerusalem and the Temple, Judah ordered the Temple to be cleansed, a new altar to be built in place of the polluted one and new holy vessels to be made. According to the Talmud, olive oil was needed for the menorah in the Temple, which was required to burn throughout the night every night. But there was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah. An eight day festival was declared by the Jewish sages to commemorate this miracle."

The martyrdom of Hannah and her seven sons is also linked to Hanukkah. Antiochus, in his demonstration of control over the Jews and their religious practices, had required her sons to eat pig or to be put to death. Each son, in turn, refused, and was, as promised, killed. Prior to the youngest son's death, Antiochus had appealed to Hannah to convince her youngest to eat pig rather than to die. But Hannah was not swayed and the son refused, and that son, as well, was put to death. Ultimately Hannah, too, suffered death in connection with these events. Her and her sons' courage and strength are commemorated to this day.

I wanted to purchase the menorah so that I would have this symbol as a reminder of these important events and of the strength and courage of these Jews nearly 2200 years ago and so that I could teach my children about these things. The principles that the menorah represent are universal and bear meaning to this non-Jew. And so today I finally received my "traditional pewter menorah" in the mail, having ordered it from Judaica.com, and was pleased to bring this symbol into my home.

By the way, I decided not to purchase the "Multi-color Puzzle Menorah," the "Inflatable Festival Menorah Decoration," the "Clef Note Menorah," the "Woven Garden Wall Menorah," or the "Giant Lawn Decoration Inflatable Menorah." The "traditional pewter menorah" works just fine for me.

This article was posted by James Blood on the International Religious Freedom Blog.

RUSSIA: Setback for anti-missionary law

Ministry of Justice sacks people who conducted incompetent
anti-missionary policy against non-Orthodox

By Roman Lunkin

Portal-credo.ru (10.02.2010) / HRWF (17.02.2010) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The uproar evoked by a series of initiatives of the Ministry of Justice of RF in the religious sphere roiled society and roused up against the ministry many believers and defenders of freedom of conscience in Russia and abroad. Since Alexander Konovalov's assumption of the post of minister in 2008, radical sect-fighters have been appointed the chief experts on religion in the Ministry of Justice, intimidating investigations of religious associations have begun, and in October 2009 the Ministry of Justice proposed a draft law harshly restricting missionary activity in Russia. All of this has sharply undermined the confidence of believers in the authorities in general, and they have begun talking about the onset of new persecution.

Meanwhile, when the situation had already flared up to the limit, at the beginning of 2010 it became known that key figures responsible for the incompetent policy with respect to believers had been dismissed from the Ministry of Justice. These were a deputy minister, Aleksei Velichko, and the head of the Department on Noncommercial Organizations, which includes work with religious associations, Sergei Milushkin. The press service of the Ministry of Justice confirmed that this is indeed so; the odious figures do not work in the Ministry of Justice any longer.

Instead of Velichko, on 14 January 2010 by order of Russian President D. Medvedev, Alexander Fedorov was named first deputy minister of justice; previously he had served as deputy head of the Federal Service for Drug Control of Russia.

From the moment of appointment (June 2008) Velichko was authorized from the very beginning to oversee noncommercial organizations, since they were moved out of the purview of the Federal Registration Service to be immediately under the Ministry of Justice. Previously he worked as deputy director of the administration of state registration of rights to immoveable property of the Federal Registration Service. And since 2006 he was the assistant of Alexander Konovalov, who then was the presidential envoy for the Volga federal district. Aleksei Velichko naturally complemented his director, Alexander Konovalov, since Velichko is the author of books about the symphony of authorities in Byzantium and Russia. Naturally, almost immediately after the "Byzantine party" arrived at the ministry, it began to construct the ideal of symphony of church and secular authorities in the way that it understands it.

Kazakhstan: International Protest against imprisonment of reknown human rights defender Zhovtis

Statement of the World Movement for Democracy Steering Committee regarding Developments in the Case against Yevgeniy Zhovtis

The Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy calls on the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan to honor the appeal submitted on 27 January 2010 by the defense team of human rights activist and fellow Steering Committee member, Yevegniy Zhovtis.  In the appeal, citing article 67 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Mr. Zhovtis' defense team calls on the Supreme Court to overturn the guilty verdict against Mr. Zhovtis and immediately release him from prison.

On 26 July 2009, Mr. Zhovtis was involved in a car accident, resulting in the tragic death of a pedestrian, Kanat Moldabayev. It is now clear that Kazakhstani authorities exploited this unfortunate accident to politicize the investigation and punish Mr. Zhovtis for his human rights work, evidenced by the fact that the investigation and the subsequent trial were rife with procedural violations.  Mr. Zhovtis was convicted and sentenced to serve a four-year prison term on 3 September 2009.

On 2 February 2010, the US Helsinki Commission will convene a hearing on Kazakhstan's current chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).  The Steering Committee urges the Commission to consider Mr. Zhovtis' case, which demonstrates Kakazhstan's disregard of fair trial standards.

We express our solidarity with fellow Steering Committee member Yevgeniy Zhovtis.

On behalf of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy:

The Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell

Former Prime Minister of Canada

To read the full statement, go to: www.wmd.org/documents/SCStatementZhovtis020110.pdf

For the statement made on 3 September 2009, go to: www.wmd.org/documents/Zhovtis93.pdf and (in Russian) www.wmd.org/documents/ZhovtisRus93.pdf

For the statement made on 1 September 2009, go to: www.wmd.org/documents/Zhovtis.pdf and (in Russian) www.wmd.org/documents/ZhovtisRus.pdf