Religious leaders rally for menorah owner

Political and religious leaders gathered Thursday morning on a lawn in Plainview to rally around a man whose giant menorah was smashed during Hanukkah last week in what Nassau County police say is a possible hate crime.

"When you attack one of us, you attack all of us," the Rev. Mark Lukens, pastor of Bethany Congregational Church of East Rockaway and chairman of the Long Island chapter of the Interfaith Alliance said at a news conference as he stood near the cracked pieces of what had been a 5-foot-tall Hanukkah menorah. "When you attack one Jewish person, you attack me."

Lukens, joined by Jewish and Islamic leaders, said he hoped the show of unity would change the heart of the vandal or vandals. "If not, hopefully you will crawl back to wherever you came from," he said.

Burton Radish, 77, who had placed the religious symbol on his lawn, as he has for at least 10 years, said his daughter came to visit the morning of Dec. 27 and found the menorah in the street, "smashed to smithereens."

"I was shocked," he said. Worse yet, he said, the menorah had been given to his wife, Roslee Radish, as a gift; she had recently died at 73 after a long illness. "I'd just finished sitting shiva for my wife," Radish said.

He'd put up the menorah this year in tribute to his wife. "I felt a responsibility to put it up for her," he said, adding "the outpouring I've received from people is such a help at this terrible time."

The menorah was made of PVC pipe painted gold and was 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide.

"These violent and reprehensible acts violate the Islamic principles of sanctity of life and safety and security of neighborhoods," said Isma H. Chaudhry, vice chairwoman of the Islamic Center of Long Island in Westbury, who also took part in Thursday's news conference.

Rabbi Rafi Rank of the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, said, "The fact you have people of different faiths and ethnicities living side by side is part of the American dream that we cherish. That is something we are not going to give up so easily."

Det. Lt. Gary Shapiro, Nassau police's bias crimes coordinator, said the religious significance of the menorah and the fact the incident occurred during Hanukkah prompted police to investigate the vandalism as a hate crime.

Radish said he hadn't heard any disturbance the night before the damage was discovered and acknowledged it could have been a prank. But, he said, "If someone destroys a cross at a church, you figure there was some underlying reason."He vowed to put up a bigger menorah next Hanukkah.

Assemb. Charles Lavine (D-Glen Cove) called the act "un-American."