A Small Signifier
I took the picture below at a Gold’s Gym in Knoxville yesterday. I wasn’t planning to share it with y’all, but just texted it to my wife and daughter, with the observation that a menorah used to just be a sort of token inclusive gesture at Christmas, but that it feels different this year — almost brave — of Gold’s to put it up.
But then when my wife was there for yoga later, she saw two women discussing it — positively — and one of them took a picture to share with friends and family. So I guess it wasn’t just me who felt that way.
On the one hand, it’s a hell of a thing when putting out a menorah in America seems brave. On the other hand, Gold’s did it, and people approved.
It is the opposite of Havel’s greengrocer, putting party slogan posters in his window. When the grocer put party slogans in his shop window, he was going along with the flow. No one thought him brave. Now, with Jews beaten in the streets of New York and murdered on the streets of L.A., and when an antisemitic mob 1,000 strong shows up at a Biden fundraiser and vandalizes a Jewish neighborhood, the menorah takes on a real significance.
It’s a hell of a thing when putting out a menorah in America seems brave. But it does. And kudos to Gold’s for doing it.
i'm Catholic to the bone. but i think i might get a menorah and put it up in the window tomorrow.
Per Dennis Prager's suggestion, this very, very Catholic lady now has a mezuzah by my front door. We Catholics know that when Jews are in danger, Catholics are in line right behind them, followed by everyone else not toeing the Hamas line of killing everyone in sight. Good for Gold's! "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall hang separately."