Stolen Menorah Replaced Before Lighting Thursday

Haddonfield Police Chief John Banning said today he has no reason to regard the theft of a 6-foot Hanukkah menorah Tuesday from Library Point as a crime of intolerance.

"We have no reason to believe it's any other type of crime other than theft," Banning said.

The menorah was made of aluminum and may have been a target of scrap-metal thieves, Banning said. The borough has been plagued by more than three dozen brazen thefts of copper downspouts from homes over the last year, often while residents are inside.

The menorah was on Wednesday morning. Only the metal studs that held it down were visible in the ground outside of the Haddonfield Public Library by the afternoon. Rabbi Yitzchok Kahan, the program and youth director of and Chabad Lubavitch Synagogue of Cherry Hill, the group that erected the menorah, said a 10-foot menorah should be in place at 6 p.m. tonight, Thursday, for a previously scheduled lighting ceremony at Library Point, Haddon Avenue and Tanner Street.

"Our goal is to move forward and shine away darkness with some light," Kahan said today. "Hopefully this thing won't occur again."

Kahan said Haddonfield police have promised to beef up patrols around the menorah.

Chabad Lubavitch has erected the menorah for the past seven years. It was located near an evergreen tree on borough property that is lighted annually during the holiday season and a Nativity scene erected by a group called the Citizens for a Christian Christmas. 

This was the first year for the Nativity scene. Citizens for a Christan Christmas don't believe the decorated evergreen tree is a Christian symbol. A resident complained to the borough commissioners at a meeting on Tuesday that the Nativity scene was obstructing part of the tree and that its proximity to it could give the impression that the borough had sponsored the Nativity scene. Officials Tuesday assured the resident the borough had not sponsored any religious symbols.

Borough commissioners are scheduled to be on hand tonight for the menorah lighting.