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December 3, 2004/Kislev 20 5765, Vol. 57, No. 14
Religious carols nixed
ROBERT WIENER
New Jersey Jewish News
WHIPPANY, N.J. - A tussle over church and state sounded some sour notes in and around Maplewood, N.J.'s Columbia High School.
The was whether the public school's brass ensemble would be allowed to play instrumental renditions of Christmas carols.
Based on a memo issued by the school's musical director, the 40-member brass band must confine the playlist at its December concerts to such nonsectarian numbers as "Frosty the Snowman" and "Walking in a Winter Wonderland."
The directive has led to derision in the press, quizzical reactions from area Jews who don't remember previous concerts being a problem and confusion as to what sparked the school's change of policy.
Quoted in the News-Record of Maplewood and South Orange, Maplewood-South Orange School District Superintendent Peter Horoschak said the district was seeking to prevent a recurrence of complaints that the band had sounded notes with religious overtones.
Nicolas Santorro, director of the district's fine arts programs, wrote a memo to music teachers stating that, in choosing music for holiday concerts, "We will avoid any selection which is considered to represent any religious holiday, be it Christmas, Chanukah, etc."
The mandate apparently follows a policy which states "religious music, like any other music, can only be used if it achieves specific goals of the music curriculum" and "shall not have a religious orientation or focus on religious holidays."
School officials said the practice is an attempt to reduce the coercion Jewish, Muslim, and other non-Christian students may feel when religious motifs waft over the wall of separation between church and state.
Rabbi Mark Cooper of Oheb Shalom Congregation, a Conservative synagogue in South Orange, N.J., suggested that the ban on instrumental carols may be more divisive than helpful. "It's not as if someone discovered an evangelist mole in the school's music department," said Cooper.
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