• U.S.

Religion: Buddha Out

2 minute read
TIME

The application made a fortnight ago by certain U. S. Buddhists for permission to erect a statue of Siddartha Gautama in Central Park, Manhattan (TIME, Dec. 14) was rejected last week by Francis D. Gallatin, Commissioner of Parks.

Channukah, Jewish Feast of Lights, of Dedication, came again last week to remind devotees that a man’s home is not only his castle but his temple.

For eight evenings at sundown, beginning with the Sabbath eve, (Friday) almost every Jewish household assembled before an odd-shaped candelabra, a candleholder with nine sockets—eight in as straight array as a well drilled military squad, the ninth in the solitude of the leader, the pilot. Each evening the paterfamilias, as family priest, lit the pilot, handed it most carefully over to his youngest to light; on the first night of Channukah, one taper, on the second two, until on the eighth night the children blinked with dazzled delight before the nine bright, golden flame-tips that bobbed, nodded, winked above the nine yellow tapers of wax or paraffin. (Candle tallow is generally forbidden to Jews because it might come from a ritually unclean beast.)

Channukah, a festival of gayety, rejoicing, blurs in the minds of U. S. children reared in Jewish faith because it occurs so close to Christmas. Christmas comes Dec. 25, Channukah the 25th of Kislew (Jewish calendar). At both, children are coddled, given presents. And both, curiously, merged centuries ago with heathen celebrations of the winter solstice, the turning of the year.

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