c. 1998 Religion News Service

Spanish Jews hold first public Hanukkah ritual in five centuries

(RNS) The Jewish community of Spain held a public celebration of Hanukkah Sunday (Dec. 20) for the first time in more than five centuries.

Members of the small community lit candles at the same location in Girona, Spain, where their ancestors sought protection in 1391 from anti-Semitic violence that was prevalent at the time. Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.”This is an emotional and unforgettable day,”Mayor Joaquim Nadal told the gathering outside the ruins of Gironella Tower.

The candle-lighting ritual on the eighth and last day of Hanukkah drew close to 1,000 people, including many non-Jews, the Associated Press reported.

The ceremony was lead by Eliahu Bakshi Doron, Israel’s chief rabbi of Sephardic Jews, who trace their ancestry to Spain.”It moves me to be standing at this spot,”he said.

The celebration was the latest example of recently established religious tolerance in Spain. In 1978, the government’s constitution re-established freedom of worship and 1992 laws placed Protestant Christianity, Islam and Judaism on equal footing with the country’s predominant Roman Catholicism.

Doron said the lighting of the eight candles _ a ninth is used to light the others _ in the 15-foot tall menorah symbolized”peace and love in a world of war and tragedy.” The ceremony was organized by the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities with the support of regional and city governments.

Hanukkah commemorates the Jewish uprising more than 2,000 years ago against the Greek-Syrian kingdom, which had tried to impose its culture and had placed statues of Greek gods in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

According to Jewish legend, a small group of Jewish warriors who tried to rekindle the temple’s eternal flame found only enough oil for one day, but the oil lasted eight days in what is believed to have been a miracle.

Drunken driver gets manslaughter in death of Jehovah’s Witness

(RNS) A drunken driver was convicted Friday (Dec. 18) of manslaughter rather than murder in the death of a Jehovah’s Witness, who died after refusing blood transfusions.

Keith Cook, 32, was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence and injuring the daughter of the woman who died. The Pomona, Calif., jury, which deliberated for 3 1/2 days, also found that Cook injured two police officers while driving with a blood-alcohol level of at least 0.08 percent, the Associated Press reported.

Defense attorney Charles Unger admitted that his client could be held responsible for the March 7 accident in Azusa, Calif., but he argued that Jadine Russell died because she refused blood transfusions because of her beliefs.

Prosecutor Larry Larson argued that Cook was solely responsible because he set in motion a series of events that led to the death of the 55-year-old mother of five.

Cook, who was estimated to have had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17 percent, plowed into a car that hit Russell, who was discussing a fender-bender with officers and another driver.

Suffering broken bones and massive hemorrhaging, Russell repeatedly told emergency personnel that her religious beliefs forbade her from taking blood, even if she could die, Unger said.

Judge orders Boston Archdiocese to pay developer millions

(RNS) A superior court judge has ordered the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston to pay at least $3.4 million in damages after finding a priest and a second church employee lied to a developer in a 1991 real estate deal relating to elderly housing.

Judge Martha B. Sosman of Suffolk Superior Court ruled that Monsignor Michael Groden, the archdiocese’s urban affairs planning director, and archdiocesan planning official Gerald Pucillo used”unfair, immoral, unethical and unscrupulous acts”in their dealings with Norman A. Levenson, a Brookline, Mass., businessman.

The judge said the archdiocesan officials misled Levenson in the early 1990s when he and the archdiocese were seeking control of the last undeveloped parcel of land in Boston’s Fenway area, The Boston Globe reported.

Levenson had an option to purchase the land, but Groden and Pucillo persuaded him to be a partner in a plan to use federal funds to construct affordable housing there, the judge said in her ruling Thursday (Dec. 17).

When the federal money did not come through, they lied to Levenson by telling him the money was still forthcoming. Levenson ended up being shut out of the deal because his option expired. The archdiocese later paid $500,000 to the federal Resolution Trust Corporation to purchase the land.

The archdiocese’s urban planning office eventually constructed 123 units of housing with an $8 million federal grant.”The court is mindful of the irony in concluding that these otherwise high-minded, and eminently respected defendants have committed unfair, immoral, unethical and unscrupulous acts,”the judge wrote.”However, the facts warrant such a conclusion.” Groden told the Globe that he feared the impact of the decision, should it remain intact.”Our lawyers are reviewing grounds for an appeal,”he said.”We are confident that a fair hearing at a higher level will result in a reversal of this threat to the construction of affordable housing in a very high-priced and housing-starved market that puts severe pressures on families of modest means.” Robert McLaughlin Sr., Levenson’s lawyer, said his client was”disappointed rather than feeling suckered”over the deal.”I think a Roman Catholic priest or any man of the cloth is certainly entitled to the presumption that he is going to be good to his word,”McLaughlin said.”Such was not the case in this situation.”

Germany’s Roman Catholic leader criticizes RU-486 sales plan

(RNS) The leader of Germany’s Roman Catholics Monday (Dec. 21) harshly criticized a government plan to allow sales of the RU-486 abortion pill.

Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a Christian Democrat, had prevented sales of the pill for years, but the center-left government that emerged from elections held in September has pledged to make a change.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said last week he is in favor of giving women an alternative to surgical abortion, the Associated Press reported. The pill causes an abortion if it is taken within the first 49 days of pregnancy.”Playing down abortion by portraying this drug as a more gentle method is unacceptable,”said Bishop Karl Lehmann, head of the German bishops’ conference, on German radio.”It remains an illegal killing.” Christine Bergmann, the German minister for women’s affairs, said Monday that there are no plans to talk with the church about the controversial pill.”I really don’t know what there is to talk about,”she said.

After Schroeder’s endorsement, the patent holder for the pill, Edouard Sakiz, said he would apply to European Union officials in January for approval to market the pill in Germany.

RU-486 was first marketed in France in 1988 and also is sold in Europe in Britain and Sweden.

Bomb blast destroys grave of German Jewish leader

(RNS) A bomb blast that destroyed the grave of a prominent German Jewish leader in Berlin prompted authorities to order tighter security Monday (Dec. 21).

There were no suspects in the Saturday night attack, which destroyed Heinz Galinski’s marble tombstone in a Jewish cemetery in western Berlin.

Eckart Werthebach, Berlin’s interior minister, said the homemade explosive was packed into the steel cap of a gas canister for maximum impact.

Galinski was the leader of Germany’s Central Council of Jews from 1988 until his death in 1992. He had led the Jewish community of Berlin since 1949.

Ignatz Bubis, Galinski’s successor, visited the gravesite Monday and blamed the destruction on rightist extremists.

Government agents are aiding in the investigation into whether it was a political crime.

Three months ago there was a similar attack on Galinski’s grave, which caused minor damage. Police also have no suspects in that case.

As police patrols were tightened at the cemetery and other Jewish sites in the city, many Germans reacted with horror to the attack.

Volker Beck, a lawyer for the Greens Party, said it demonstrated that anti-Semitism continues in Germany. President Roman Herzog sent a telegram to Galinski’s wife, Ruth, expressing sadness and pain over the bomb blast, which he called”the result of crazy minds and the work of confused loners.”

Judge rules Jesus statue can stay in Wisconsin park

(RNS) A federal judge has ruled that a controversial statue of Jesus can remain in a park in Marshfield, Wis.

District Judge John C. Shabaz dismissed a lawsuit by the Freedom from Religion Foundation and Clarence Reinders, a city resident and foundation member, who believed the statue was unconstitutional. They had sued the city and the Henry Praschak Memorial Fund, which purchased from the city the site of the statue and is responsible for maintaining the area.

Although the city sold the statue to the fund to accommodate the foundation’s concerns about church-state separation, the foundation said the sale of the property was still unconstitutional because it showed a preference for Christianity.”The court finds that the city of Marshfield did not show a preference for the Christian religion which violated the U.S. Constitution or the Wisconsin constitution by selling the parcel of land and the statue to the fund,”the judge wrote in a Dec. 15 decision.

The Midwestern office of the American Center for Law and Justice, a public interest law firm founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, helped represent Marshfield in the case.”This is a major victory for common sense and religious expression,”said Francis Manion, senior regional counsel for the ACLJ-Midwest.”We believed from the start that the lawsuit filed against the city was baseless. The plaintiffs thought they could bully the city into removing or destroying the statue of Jesus by threatening the city with expensive and time-consuming litigation. Fortunately, common sense and a realistic view of the First Amendment’s requirement prevailed.” Anne Nicol Gaylor, president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which is based in Madison, Wis., said her organization achieved a”partial victory”concerning the statue, which was erected in 1959.”In arranging to sell the property, the city did recognize that government shouldn’t own shrines and that’s a step forward,”she said.

But Gaylor said her group is studying whether they should appeal the decision concerning what she called”a sham sale to a predetermined buyer.” She said Reinders”would have appreciated an opportunity to bid on that … He would have removed the statue, removed the shrine, given it to whomever wanted it.” The Freedom from Religion Foundation is a 20-year-old group of”free thinkers,”including atheists, agnostics and humanists who support church-state separation.

Quote of the day: Communist Party USA member Evelina Alarcon

(RNS)”We don’t have a problem with God. It’s the system we have a problem with.” _ Evelina Alarcon of El Sereno, Calif., chairwoman of the Communist Party USA’s Southern California district, quoted in the Los Angeles Times about why her group had a Christmas party on Sunday (Dec. 20).

IR END RNS