Everything You Need To Know About The Menorah Incident On The Green
I filmed the Menorah on the Green when it was desecrated by a pro-Palestinian demonstrater last Saturday Dec 9th.
You could read my full coverage of the event here.The event was called “Shut It Down For Human Rights Day” and it was thrown by a number of groups including a group called “Yalies for Palestine.”
The event was called “Shut It Down For Human Rights Day” and it was thrown by a number of groups including a group called “Yalies for Palestine.” This was the flyer. You can see the organizers listed at the top of the flyer: We Will Return, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), American Muslims For Palestine (AMP), etc.
The organizers who threw the New Haven rally are part of a larger network of affiliated groups that regularly organize protests and demonstrations in Connecticut.
The organizers kicked off December with a slew of protests and rallies that increasingly rose in intensity.
Protesters Follow Chris Murphy At A Fundraiser – December 2nd
On 12/2/2023, protesters showed up at a fundraising event for Senator Chris Murphy’s re-election and followed him around chanting at him. According to the Instagram description from @weprotectusct, Senator Murphy requested a police escort as he left.
Chris Murphy is escorted by police at a fundraising event, with protesters trailing behind him screaming “who do you protect, who do you serve?” and asking questions about genocide.
Protesters show up at Senator Chris Murphy’s fundraising event for re-election.
The protest called for Chris Murphy to take a harder stance against Israel, even after a public statement he released on November 2nd that criticized Israel’s operations in Gaza.
“It’s time for Israel’s friends to recognize that the current operational approach is causing an unacceptable level of civilian harm and does not appear likely to achieve the goal of permanently ending the threat from Hamas.” – Senator Chris Murphy
Protesters Show Up To Ned Lamont’s Holiday Open House – December 9th
On Saturday, December 9th, protesters showed up to the Governor’s Residence 33rd Annual Holiday Open House at 990 Prospect Avenue in Hartford.
The event continued a Connecticut tradition of the Governor opening his/her home to the public during the holiday season. The event was also a fundraiser for Operation E.L.F. a campaign by the non profit Connecticut National Guard Foundation.
Protesters showed up to the Governor’s Residence 33rd Annual Holiday Open House chanting for the genocide in Gaza to come to an end.
Protesters chanted “Lamont Pays the bills, Apartheid kills.” They were escorted out of the event by state troopers.
Protesters also showed up at the finish line of the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving Day, 2023. Here’s a pic of me getting yelled at after running 5 miles.
RALLY ON THE NEW HAVEN GREEN
On December 9th, protesters also rallied on the New Haven Green at 2pm.
They started the event with a few chants and speakers who addressed the conflict in Gaza.
One common chant was the “Shut It Down” chant.
The ralliers went through different iterations of this chant throughout the protest following same general format.
The chant starts with the leader calling out an institution and then the protesters responding with “Shut It Down”
The chant culminates with the protesters repeating “shut it down” in rapid succession.
For example, a leader may yell “If Connecticut doesn’t get it – ” “Shut it down”
“If Israel doesn’t get it” – “Shut it down”… and so forth.
Protesters kicked off the rally with a “shut it down” chant. Variations of this chant were uttered throughout the entirety of the rally.
When the protesters approached the New Haven Green, the 30 ft Menorah emerged.
The Menorah was built 40 years ago by Deitsch Plastic, a Jewish owned company that also operates the local Chabbad Lubavitch Yeshiva which is renowned as one of the top Chabbad Lubavitch Yeshivas in the country.
When they approached the Menorah I had a hunch that someone might tamper with it, and I was right.
So I hung out in the crowd near the Menorah and it didn’t take long before a masked individual broke away from the group and charged towards it.
The protesters had already started another “Shut It Down” chant, before the man ran to the Menorah.
I followed with my camera as the unidentified man ran towards the Menorah. I was worried he was going to topple it.
Directly behind me, protesters were chanting “Shut it down,” and it seemed like they were directing their chanting towards the District Court across the street , probably because the pillars and naked roman guys represented justice or something.
From my perspective it seems that nobody in the crowd even noticed this guy making a beeline for the Menorah, except for the few people who followed him – probably recognizing immediately what he was up to.
Well, he continued towards the Menorah and propped up a Palestinian flag. The video speaks for itself:
You can hear his fellow protesters exclaiming: “take it down, it looks bad for us…”
Obviously, the other protesters had enough sense to refrain from openly desecrating a religious symbol and recognized how bad it would make their protest look! Even if secretly every protester wanted the Menorah desecrated – nobody did it because they knew it was wrong.
For a person who wasn’t there, the video is misleading. It makes it seem like the crowd was chanting him on. They weren’t. They were already well into a “shut it down” chant before he broke away from the group.
Later, down the street, protesters were egged from apartment buildings.
The next day, the organizers apologized. Yale and the City of New Haven both condemned the man’s actions as well.
The video I took went viral and was published through various mass media like Associated Press, CNN, and the New York Times.
The New York Times quoted me as saying:
“It’s been exaggerated,” said Mr. Dressler.
He also noted that someone started throwing eggs at the protesters. “That’s like a direct violent act toward a person,” he said. “Nobody got hurt with the menorah thing.”
My thoughts
First of all, keep in mind that the New York Times reporter and I had a 20 minute conversation where I talked at length about my experience and mentioned numerous times that I don’t condone or think it acceptable to desecrate a Menorah.
My point in saying that the incident was exaggerated was in reference to the fact that as a small town occurance with no other examples of antisemitism at Yale this really didn’t deserve to be a national story.
This was one idiot who ruined a peaceful demonstration for his friends. Nobody else in the group was that childish, everyone knew better. The guy was a moron and what he did was wrong. There is no excuse and I denounce his actions, especially as a Jew myself.
As far as the comment I made about the egging being worse, I’m a lawyer, I was thinking in legal terms.
In law, the penalties for a direct act of aggression against a human being are more significant than an act against property that doesn’t event result in damage.
Defacing property is legally less significant than violence towards a person in both a criminal and civil sense. Simple as that and that’s a fact.
Note: There are different levels of property damage vs. assault and different laws that may or may not apply, for example CT human rights laws. So one could make the argument that depending on the degree of property damage or intention it is worse than assault. And that may be true in some cases.
Generally though, all things being equal, property damage is viewed less seriously in American law.
Finally,
While I wasn’t at the protest as a supporter for their cause, I do support free speech and peaceful protesting. I applaud the organizer’s efforts to try and keep this protest peaceful and it’s unfortunate that one of their supporters had to ruin it.
You can either chalk this up as a misguided act by a single person or you can go to the other extreme and call it a hate crime. The reality falls somewhere in between. The act certainly reflects a growing attitude in America where brazen criticism of Jews is becoming more tolerated. And that is alarming.
Do I Think It Was A YalIe?
I highly highly highly doubt it was a Yale student.
I grew up in New Haven and have interacted with many Yale students in my life. They are Ivy League level brilliant. Like, sure some Yalies are morons but they’re all at Yale for a reason.
They have a lot of pride and they conduct themselves accordingly.
I cannot imagine any Yale student who would be dumb enough to risk an expulsion over something so pointless and avoidable. That’s my personal bias speaking, but seriously…
Yale isn’t known for public rowdiness. And the Cavanough/Bush eras of secretive tomfoolery and butt-stuff shenanigans are either relics of the past or have just been more diligently concealed.
I don’t know if the kid was a college student, but since a Uconn student group helped organize the event, I’d venture to guess that it was more likely a Uconn student… if it was a student at all.
Uconn students are the ones who flip cars and get arrested over bacon mac and cheese, not Yalies.
What Will Happen If The Perp Is Caught?
Connecticut has various statutes covering hate crime laws and property damage.
In this case, the property was not damaged and police don’t really pursue charges if there was no damage.
As far as hate crimes go, intentionally desecrating any public property, monument, or structure; religious object, symbol, or house of worship; cemetery; or private structure not owned by the offender, can result in fees of $1,000 or more depending on the damage.
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Finding the guy is going to be difficult. Even if the police had a suspect, he was in a mask… which makes him nearly impossible to identify.
He uttered one word in the video but it was muffled through his mask.
Unless one of his friends identify him… it’s going to be very difficult to bring charges.
I do not think he will get caught. If he were caught, I think prosecutors would be forced to press charges because there is so much public pressure and calls from political leaders to do so.
Had a cop caught this guy scaling the Menorah late at night with nobody around he’d probably just tell him to get down and likely wouldn’t bother charging the guy with a hate crime.
I mean, there are a lot of weirdos on the green at any given moment I’m certain this isn’t the first time in 40 years that the Menorah has been desecrated and we just didn’t know about it… or nobody got arrested for it.