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Times Union
Rabbi Yaakov Weiss hopes to have a large menorah displayed in the Colonie Center Mall

Colonie, NY — It wouldn't be the holiday season without a dust-up over religious expression in a public space.

This year, once again, that space is Colonie Center.

And, once again, rumors circulating about the mall muzzling religious expression appear to be unfounded.

Mall to Make Room for Sacred Amid Shopping

Times Union
Rabbi Yaakov Weiss hopes to have a large menorah displayed in the Colonie Center Mall

Colonie, NY — It wouldn’t be the holiday season without a dust-up over religious expression in a public space.

This year, once again, that space is Colonie Center.

And, once again, rumors circulating about the mall muzzling religious expression appear to be unfounded.

It started recently with a Colonie rabbi who asked the mall to display an 18-foot Hanukkah menorah.

At a meeting scheduled for today, Rabbi Yaakov Weiss figures mall officials will give him the same answer as last year: no.

So the Jewish leader e-mailed his supporters urging them to lobby General Manager Joseph Millett. And the response, he says, has been dozens of e-mails and calls.

“I feel it’s important that the thousands of Jews who shop there should be able to see THEIR holiday displayed,” wrote Weiss, who leads Chabad of Colonie, part of a worldwide Orthodox Jewish organization.
Not so fast, Millett said.

Customers shouldn’t get the idea Colonie Center has said no, he said Thursday, because it hasn’t.

“He’s just gathering all this momentum based on what he feels is a safe assumption on his part,” Millett said, declining to tip his hand further. “And it could prove very embarrassing to him.”

It’s a touchy subject at the mall. The complex made front-page news last year after a false rumor got around that a church’s Christmas performance had been limited to secular singing.

It is true, Millett said, that the mall refused Weiss’s request for an 18-foot menorah display last year.

The mall labeled the menorah a “religious” symbol, Weiss claimed, while the ubiquitous trees and Santa Clauses and other decorations were “holiday” items.

“It boggles my mind,” Weiss said. “I’d like to know how many other Christians in the area would agree with him that the tree is not a religious symbol. I do not believe the tree is a secular symbol.”

Weiss’s mind shouldn’t remain boggled much longer.

The chairman and CEO of Colonie Center’s parent company called the Times Union from an Arkansas airport late Thursday with an announcement.

Colonie Center would absolutely “have some representation of Hanukkah,” said Larry Feldman of Feldman Mall Properties. The company will work with the Jewish community to settle exactly what form that will take.

“So please make sure that you run with that story,” he said.

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8 Comments

  • Relieved but...

    As of Friday, the Mall OKed the Menorah
    which seems only right.
    The Mall is not a public space, like a town square, which in recent years has had issue with the display of any religious based holiday symbol.This has been at issue so as not to upset any member of any religious group with the symbols of another on state owned property, thus violating the issue of separation of church and state.
    The mall is a privately owned business venture and can pretty much do as it wishes. In this case the mall (space not stores) is owned by a Jew, and how any Jew can allow Christmas displays to attract Christmas shoppers, as well as
    choral events (10 of them!) by Christian and Catholic schools, whom I’m sure can’t all be singing secular, non-religious content songs; all the while hesitating to allow one little menorah is beyond comprehension.
    I’m glad the Rabbi was able to triumph, and received so much support.
    Maybe next year some Jewish choral events!