Howard County: What the Hanukkah Lights Dispute Really Is

The stern letter arrived at the Levine home in the village of River Hill in Columbia in early November.

The River Hill Community Association said the family violated an agreement regarding “outdoor lighting and poles.” Allison Levine, 13, listened long enough to her parents’ conversation to understand that the elaborate Hanukkah lights they had set up for most of her life were the source of the problems.

“They won’t turn off my lights,” Allison thought.

Hanukkah had been her favorite holiday since she was 2 years old and would come home from preschool to wrap her little arms around a 6-foot inflatable Hanukkah bear that her grandmother had purchased for their front yard. In the years that followed, the Levines’ holiday decorations multiplied. They bought thousands of blue and white lights, plastic menorahs, inflatable dreidels and a Mensch on a bench. Allison called the exhibit a “Hanukkah winter wonderland.”

Allison asked her parents if anyone in the neighborhood was trying to cancel Hanukkah – and why?

It would be too simple to characterize the dispute over the Levines’ Hanukkah lights as a neighborhood feud. Its roots, recounted by the Howard County residents involved, suggest something deeper is going on. Perhaps the tremors from Israel’s contentious war with Hamas and the presidential election shook even the Christmas decorations of a suburban Maryland home.

Allison’s parents, Matt and Susan Levine, moved into the house nearly 18 years ago, around the time anti-Semitic graffiti appeared in the neighborhood and Howard County authorities were searching for the culprit behind it. the swastikas burned on the lawns of Ellicott City.

Despite the disturbing vandalism, the family moved into the house on Empty Song Road and Matt Levine eventually joined the homeowners association board. Community guidelines, he would learn, did not require residents to submit a request for holiday decorations — as long as they go up no more than 28 days before the holiday and come down within 28 days afterward.

Over the years, the Levines’ collection of Hanukkah decorations grew exponentially. When Allison turned 9, she began making decisions about how to design the Christmas lights display. She sweet-talked a new neighbor with a plate of cookies to get permission to use her yard as well. The multi-lawn collaboration was even praised in a River Hill Community Association newsletter in 2020.

The association’s notice of violation came just hours before the start of Shabbat – the Jewish faith’s sunset sabbath from Friday to Saturday – and imposed a deadline to respond before this Monday, a federal holiday.

A small fraction of the lights were on, but none of the inflatables, as community guidelines specified they were not allowed until December 1st. A curtain of lights had been hanging in front of the house for weeks, but Matt Levine thought they were complying with the rules because they were scheduled to change based on holidays.

After 11 years of transforming the two-story home into River Hill’s “Hanukkah House,” the announcement left them baffled.

“The only thing that makes sense is for someone to be angry at Israel and make it disappear,” Matt Levine concluded.

A year ago, the family incorporated a large Israeli flag into the exhibit — a reflection of solidarity just months after the Oct. 7 attack when Hamas militants marched into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. Earlier in the summer of 2023, the family took a trip to Israel for Allison’s bat mitzvah, an experience that deepened their faith. The family invited visitors to their Hanukkah home in late 2023 to donate money to the Israel Defense Forces.

Then the police arrived, Matt Levine said. Someone called authorities as they organized a car parade for other Jewish families to drive past the house and see the lights. Most neighbors were friendly, but as the war in Gaza intensified and public outcry over the number of civilian deaths intensified, Matt Levine remembers hearing whispers of “support for genocide.” as they walked past them.

In the year since the war began, Marylanders with ties to Israel and Gaza have struggled to find unity amid the conflict. The state has the eighth largest Jewish population and the seventh largest Muslim population among U.S. states. The war and rising anti-Semitism were determining factors for some Jewish voters in the presidential election.

Ron Briggs lives across the street from the Levines. Although he long thought the exposure was overblown, he said he had no problem celebrating Jewish holidays or even displaying the Israeli flag. But around October, he noticed that the light curtain hanging at his neighbor’s house had been programmed to read “MAGA ’24.”

“Really?” the 76-year-old said he thought. “It’s the Trump stuff that lit us all up.”

Briggs and his wife moved from Baltimore to Columbia 27 years ago to get away from the noise and traffic, he said.

Over the years, he teased Matt Levine about the lights as he walked to the mailbox.

“You don’t have enough,” Briggs joked. “We need more on the roof.”

Now some lights were coming on months before Hanukkah and the political statement bothered him. He suspected the size of the MAGA sign was larger than allowed by neighborhood guidelines. He filed a complaint with the homeowners association.

Matt Levine said he doesn’t support “any of the above” running for president in the 2024 general election. He said he was playing with the sets when the lights represented Trump’s slogan.

Weeks passed, and by the time the Levines began setting up the Hanukkah display, Briggs had even more objections. Living in River Hill had been nice and easy, he said.

“Then someone comes along and wants to make it Disneyland,” Briggs said.

For the septuagenarian, the maze of electrical cords that covered the yard posed a safety problem. The decorations, he said, encroached on the sidewalk and were too close to parked cars. And they are brilliant.

“He’s just outside the bounds of what I would call normal,” Briggs said. “He’s a guy who puts a menorah on his car and drives around. He is usually over the top in everything he does.

Briggs took issue with other things Matt Levine has done over the years, including installing security cameras, which he also reported to the community association. But he never discussed these concerns with him.

Briggs considers his neighbor a conservative, a proud agitator, and someone willing to “pull the Jewish card.”

To Matt Levine, Briggs and the homeowners association’s objections to the lights smack of anti-Semitism. He viewed the violation notice as an intimidation tactic that he could not stand.

“I don’t think I need an excuse to go further,” he said. “But I’ll take one.”

The Levines were granted an extension to respond to the homeowners association’s notice. They have until Dec. 16 to submit a rebuttal and do not expect the issue to come before the board for consideration before Hanukkah ends and the lights go out.

In a statement, River Hill Village Manager Renee DuBois said the association “proudly celebrates the diverse cultures and heritages of its residents” and acknowledged that the covenants allow for holiday displays to be presented for 28 days before and after the occasion.

“The Covenants meet minimum standards for land use, architectural design, property maintenance and safety for residents and visitors to the Village of River Hill,” she said. “Compliance with these standards ensures a safe and secure environment for everyone. »

On a Sunday afternoon in late November, the Levines began unpacking the lights for another season of Hanukkah. Allison didn’t know why anyone would want to cancel their favorite vacation. Maybe they were just grumpy, she said.

But the teenager did not dwell on the adults’ disagreements. His mind was occupied with another problem: how to make the lights dance.