Cranbury Approves Menorah on Main Street

Main Street in Cranbury will be adorned with more than just a Christmas tree this year after the Township Committee unanimously approved Monday the addition of a menorah to the holiday decorations.

This year both a Christmas tree and a menorah will be displayed in Memorial Park, however the Committee said they would discuss a possible change in location next year.

Memorial Park honors veterans from World War I through the Vietnam war, and is the current location of a Christmas tree.

Rabbi Eliezer Zaklikovsky of Chabad Jewish Center in Monroe said he received requests from Jewish residents for a menorah in town.

“In the spirit of the holiday [Hanukkah] we try to spread the light and spread the warmth by putting up menorahs and I just figured, being a very close neighborhood to Cranbury, it would be nice for Cranbury to have one,” Zaklikovsky said.

Zaklikovsky said they will put the menorah up, take it down and store it, as they do with other surrounding communities.

“We’ll comply with whatever needs to be complied with,” Zaklikovsky said.

The menorah sits around 6 to 7 feet tall and 4 to 5 feet wide.

Before the vote and public comment, Township attorney Steven Goodell explained this was a first amendment issue and similar cases have gone before the Supreme Court.

“The government can have a government-sponsored display, however if it does, that display can’t endorse one religion over another,” Goodell said.

Several residents supported adding the menorah to the holiday display, including Cranbury resident Jonathan Bowker, who served in Iraq for six months and is Jewish.

“It [the menorah] deserves as much of a footprint in this town as that Christmas tree does,” Bowker said.

“I know you guys already have the tree on the war memorial – should it be there? No. Should anything be there? No. But the fact that it’s already there shouldn’t mean that you can’t put the Rabbi’s menorah [there].” 

Cranbury resident Daniel Black, a senior at Princeton High School, said he was one of few Jewish people at the Cranbury School.

“It’s no secret Cranbury could do better with diversity,” Black said. “I do think Cranbury is heading in the right direction and I do think that putting the menorah next to the tree, this year at the very least, would be a part of that and would not hurt at all,” Black said.