Why a Maine town swapped out a Star of David from its holiday display

“I think it was all positive intent to just try and be more inclusive,” Mayor Michael Foley said, adding that, since the story broke in local media, he had been fielding calls from people accusing him of antisemitism. “There’s been no ill intention by it. It was simply an honest mistake and it was never included on our display.”

Foley said the star had been ordered by a city employee without his knowledge. He added, “I still don’t truly understand” why someone had complained about it, but he had reached out to a local Arab group, the New England Arab American Organization, for advice after the complaint was made.

The Star of David has been widely used by Jewish communities since the 17th century; it has also been used to identify Jews by their adversaries, notably the Nazis. The Star of David is also the centerpiece of the Israeli flag, adopted in October 1948, months after Israel became a country.

Unintentional antisemitism?

“They view it as the city taking a side in the war, we’re supporting one country over another,” Foley said about the citizen that objected to the symbol. Initial reports that the New England Arab American Organization was behind the complaint itself were mistaken, he said.

In a statement Friday after this article’s initial publication, the group’s board also stated that it was not behind the complaint. “NEAAO stands in solidarity with our Jewish community, Arab community and any other community in recognizing their rights for their religious symbols to be displayed on their private properties and on public properties in accordance to local laws,” the statement read. The board added that the organization is “non-religious and non-political.”

As the debate around Israel and Gaza has remained heated since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s ensuing war on the terror group in Gaza, even public displays have not been immune to the war. Earlier this week the University of Texas in Dallas removed “spirit rocks” that had been fixtures on campus for years because, administrators said, students were using them to paint increasingly aggressive messages about Israel, Gaza and the Palestinians.

But the presence (or lack thereof) of Jewish symbols in city holiday displays is a much older issue, one that has been litigated before the U.S. Supreme Court. A 1989 case found that the public display of a Nativity scene in a Pittsburgh courthouse was not permissible because it could be interpreted as the city promoting one religion over another, but that the display of a Chabad-Lubavitch menorah was allowed because the city demonstrated pluralism by pairing it with a Christmas tree.

Foley had been hoping to find a similar pluralistic spirit in Westbrook. For the last few years the city sought to expand its holiday display to include Hanukkah and other celebrations, while avoiding having any explicitly religious symbols on the advice of their legal counsel. “We just tried to stick with colors and snowflakes and snowmen and animals,” he said.

City staff decided on dreidels, he said, because they “seemed like a reasonable compromise with members of the community.” This was to be the first year when the dreidels would join the display (Westbrook, which has a population of around 20,000, does not have any synagogues).

Foley said he didn’t know that a member of the display’s installation team also ordered the Star of David and was unaware that it is seen as a broader religious symbol for Jews beyond Hanukkah.

“As far as I’m concerned, I think the dreidel’s a really appropriate winter holiday symbol in the context of a holiday light display,” Molly Curren Rowles, the director of the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, told JTA.

Rowles said that her Portland-based group was not consulted on the dispute until she reached out to the city after the story began to make waves, but that she now hopes to turn it into an interfaith teaching opportunity. The alliance works regularly with the Arab American organization.

“I think obviously we would be concerned if the Star of David were perceived as an offensive symbol,” she said. While the alliance would “give deference to the Establishment Clause,” she added, “we’re happy to have Stars of David wherever people want to put them up.”

Talks are in the works to add a menorah to the city’s display, while a local church has offered to put the Star of David on its own property — what Foley said is meant as a gesture of solidarity to the Jewish community. But, he said, he will follow local Jewish guidance on whether that would be appropriate.

Correction and update (12/1/23): An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that the complaint about the Star of David came from the New England Arab American Organization. In fact, the complaint came from an Arab American private citizen, and the city of Westbrook then reached out to the NEAAO for advice on dealing with it. This story has also been updated with a statement from the NEAAO.