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Why a Maine town swapped out a Star of David from its holiday display
(JTA) – A suburb of Portland, Maine, has removed a Star of David from its annual holiday lights display after a local Arab American organization complained, reportedly calling it “offensive” in light of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
But the mayor of Westbrook told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the reason for the star’s removal had more to do with the city’s efforts to follow the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which is understood to forbid overtly religious displays on public property. He added that local Jewish groups agreed it should be taken down and that Hanukkah would still be represented for the first time in the city’s holiday display via a series of dreidels.
“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 the local Arab group, the New England Arab American Organization, had complained about it.
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.
“They view it as the city taking a side in the war, we’re supporting one country over another,” Foley said about the group that objected to the symbol. The organization did not respond to JTA requests for comment.
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 looped in late on the dispute but now hopes to turn it into an interfaith teaching opportunity. She has reached out to the Arab American group to better understand their objection but hasn’t heard from them yet.
“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.
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The post Why a Maine town swapped out a Star of David from its holiday display appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Says ‘Extremely Cautious’ on Success of Nuclear Talks with US
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Iran and the United States have agreed to continue nuclear talks next week, both sides said on Saturday, though Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi voiced “extreme cautious” about the success of the negotiations to resolve a decades-long standoff.
US President Donald Trump has signaled confidence in clinching a new pact with the Islamic Republic that would block Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb.
Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held a third round of the talks in Muscat through Omani mediators for around six hours, a week after a second round in Rome that both sides described as constructive.
“The negotiations are extremely serious and technical… there are still differences, both on major issues and on details,” Araqchi told Iranian state TV.
“There is seriousness and determination on both sides… However, our optimism about success of the talks remains extremely cautious.”
A senior US administration official described the talks as positive and productive, adding that both sides agreed to meet again in Europe “soon.”
“There is still much to do, but further progress was made on getting to a deal,” the official added.
Earlier Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi had said talks would continue next week, with another “high-level meeting” provisionally scheduled for May 3. Araqchi said Oman would announce the venue.
Ahead of the lead negotiators’ meeting, expert-level indirect talks took place in Muscat to design a framework for a potential nuclear deal.
“The presence of experts was beneficial … we will return to our capitals for further reviews to see how disagreements can be reduced,” Araqchi said.
An Iranian official, briefed about the talks, told Reuters earlier that the expert-level negotiations were “difficult, complicated and serious.”
The only aim of these talks, Araqchi said, was “to build confidence about the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.”
Trump, in an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, said “I think we’re going to make a deal with Iran,” but he repeated a threat of military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.
Shortly after Araqchi and Witkoff began their latest indirect talks on Saturday, Iranian state media reported a massive explosion at the country’s Shahid Rajaee port near the southern city of Bandar Abbas, killing at least four people and injuring hundreds.
MAXIMUM PRESSURE
While both Tehran and Washington have said they are set on pursuing diplomacy, they remain far apart on a dispute that has rumbled on for more than two decades.
Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.
Since 2019, Iran has breached the pact’s nuclear curbs including “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week Iran would have to entirely stop enriching uranium under a deal, and import any enriched uranium it needed to fuel its sole functioning atomic energy plant, Bushehr.
Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs on its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but ending its enrichment program or surrendering its enriched uranium stockpile are among “Iran’s red lines that could not be compromised” in the talks.
Moreover, European states have suggested to US negotiators that a comprehensive deal should include limits preventing Iran from acquiring or finalizing the capacity to put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile, several European diplomats said.
Tehran insists its defense capabilities like its missile program are not negotiable.
An Iranian official with knowledge of the talks said on Friday that Tehran sees its missile program as a bigger obstacle in the talks.
The post Iran Says ‘Extremely Cautious’ on Success of Nuclear Talks with US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Palestinian Leader Abbas Names Likely Successor in Bid to Reassure World Powers
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas named close confidant Hussein al-Sheikh as his deputy and likely successor on Saturday, the Palestine Liberation Organization said, a step widely seen as needed to assuage international doubts over Palestinian leadership.
Abbas, 89, has headed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) since the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat in 2004 but he had for years resisted internal reforms including the naming of a successor.
Sheikh, born in 1960, is a veteran of Fatah, the main PLO faction which was founded by Arafat and is now headed by Abbas. He is widely viewed as a pragmatist with very close ties to Israel.
He was named PLO vice president after the organization’s executive committee approved his nomination by Abbas, the PLO said in a statement.
Reform of the PA, which exercises limited autonomy in the West Bank, has been a priority for the United States and Gulf monarchies hoping the body can play a central role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Pressure to reform has intensified since the start of the war in Gaza, where the PLO’s main Palestinian rival Hamas has battled Israel for more than 18 months, leaving the tiny, crowded territory in ruins.
The United States has promoted the idea of a reformed PA governing in Gaza after the war. Gulf monarchies, which are seen as the most likely source of funding for reconstruction in Gaza after the war, also want major reforms of the body.
CALL FOR HAMAS TO DISARM
Israel’s declared goal in Gaza is the destruction of Hamas but it has also ruled out giving the PA any role in government there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
Hamas, which follows a militant Islamist ideology, has controlled Gaza since 2007 when it defeated the PA in a brief civil war after winning an election the previous year. It also has a large presence in the West Bank.
At a meeting of the PLO’s Central Council on Wednesday and Thursday that approved the position of vice president without naming an appointee, Abbas made his clearest ever call for Hamas to completely disarm and hand its weapons – and responsibility for governing in Gaza – to the PA.
Widespread corruption, lack of progress towards an independent state and increasing Israeli military incursions in the West Bank have undermined the PA’s popularity among many Palestinians.
The body has been controlled by Fatah since it was formed in the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993 and it last held parliamentary elections in 2005.
Sheikh, who was imprisoned by Israel for his activities opposing the occupation during the period 1978-89, has worked as the PA’s main contact liaising with the Israeli government under Abbas and been his envoy on visits to world powers.
The post Palestinian Leader Abbas Names Likely Successor in Bid to Reassure World Powers first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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3rd Round of Nuclear Talks Between Iran, US Concludes in Oman
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – The third round of talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program has concluded on Saturday, US media reported.
The two sides are understood to have discussed the US lifting of sanctions on Iran, with focuses on technical and key topics including uranium enrichment.
On April 12, the US and Iran held indirect talks in Muscat, marking the first official negotiation between the two sides since the US unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The second round of indirect talks took place in Rome, Italy, on April 19.
All parties, including Oman, stated that the first two rounds of talks were friendly and constructive, but Iranian media pointed out that the first two rounds were mainly framework negotiations and had not yet touched upon the core issues of disagreement.
According to media reports, one of the key issues in the expert-level negotiations will be whether Washington will allow Iran to continue uranium enrichment within the framework of its nuclear program. In response, Araghchi made it clear that Iran’s right to uranium enrichment is non-negotiable.
The US, Israel and other Western actors including the United Nation’s nuclear agency reject Iranian claims that its uranium enrichment is strictly civilian in its goals.
The post 3rd Round of Nuclear Talks Between Iran, US Concludes in Oman first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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