Airport Director Mark Reis claims they believed that if they added the menorah, they would also have to display other religious and cultural symbols. And I just don't know what religious and cultural symbols they could have been thinking of. Christians, Christian offshoots (such as Mormons), Wiccans and related Solstice-celebrating pagans, Pastafarians, and people who celebrate Christmas as a mostly secular cultural holiday are all covered by the trees. Jews would have been covered by the menorah (which, by the way, the rabbi was going to provide). Buddhists don't care. Muslims might care, but Ramadan was in September this year. I don't know if Hindus care, but Diwali is over with by December anyway. I'm probably supposed to mention Kwanzaa at this point, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to say about it. Hardly anyone celebrates Grunthar's Ascendance anymore, and even if they did, I'm pretty sure they would be satisfied with plastic entrails nowadays.

Anyway, I don't know what was wrong with just putting up the menorah as requested and worrying about what other religions or ethnic groups might want when they, too, got around to actually requesting it. If the staff had the time to take down all the trees in the first place -- and now to put them back up -- the whole "staff too busy" argument doesn't really convince.

I keep going back to this: there was a reason they didn't want to put up the menorah, but it wasn't a reason they felt comfortable revealing to the outside world -- either to the press, or to the rabbi making the request. But, whatever it was, they felt so strongly about it that, when faced with an "include us or else" lawsuit, they decided to exclude everyone rather than include the menorah. They put the trees back -- still with no accompanying menorah -- only when the rabbi dropped his lawsuit.

What is that elusive, unspoken reason? Did they think the electric menorah was really tacky or something? Were they afraid the menorah would inspire Islamic-themed terrorism?

Or -- do they just hate Jews?

There's something else that bothered me about the story the first time I heard it, and that was the slight, scornful stress on the word "rabbi." And it bothered me because I already think that the right wing War on Christmas has a disturbingly anti-Semitic flavor. Not that everyone who was appalled by the removal of the holiday trees is a right winger -- but, if you were appalled, whom did you blame? The rabbi, or the Port of Seattle?