"Are you people the ones responsible for pulling down our Christmas trees at the airport?  You people shouldn't do things like this - it will make people hate you more."

That was the first message on my answering machine at work Monday morning.  But for the events of last summer - the fatal shooting at the Jewish Federation - I would simply have deleted it.  Instead, it made me think how this Christmas-versus-Hanukkah crisis could have been avoided and what the flare-up is really about.

The issue began with Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish organization that encourages more assimilated Jews to turn to tradition, asking the Port of Seattle to allow the display of a giant menorah alongside one of the Christmas trees at the airport, and then threatening a lawsuit after the request was refused.

It escalated when airport officials decided to remove all the Christmas trees on display rather than discuss changing existing practice.  Finally, when the media got hold of the story, we had a full-blown community brouhaha on our hands.

How could it have been avoided?  With a little common sense.  First, the time to discuss Christmas displays is the preceding July, so that there is time enough to talk without a deadline looming. This was the rabbi's mistake. Second, airport officials should have known that to yank an existing Christmas display in the midst of a controversy would only fuel the fires of prejudice and hatred.  By acting as it did, the Port behaved much worse than the Grinch.  That was the airport's mistake, which Port Commissioners, thankfully, have rectified by putting the trees back on display. No one, certainly not Chabad, wanted the Christmas trees removed in the first place.

Decades ago the Jewish community was divided over Chabad's decision to display Hanukkah menorahs on public land. The majority opposed this move because it was seen as a violation of the principle of the separation of church and state, and the misuse of a religious symbol.

Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court settled the matter by ruling that the menorah could be viewed as a secular symbol if not part of a religious-themed display - which Chabad claims is the case since they do not use the menorah in a religious manner; that is, with the required prayers that normally accompany a menorah's lighting.

But it is disingenuous for Chabad or any other Jewish group to say that the menorah is not a religious symbol.  The Hanukkah menorah is the religious symbol of Hanukkah because it commemorates "the miracle" of the light that lasted for eight days instead of one.  In this sense, it is on a par with the crèche, which celebrates "the miracle" of Jesus's birth.  Neither should have a place on public land.  It would be much more appropriate - the Supreme Court ruling notwithstanding - to display a giant Hanukkah dreidel alongside a Christmas tree, since neither has any religious significance, yet both allude to their own holy days.

What this flare-up indicates is how volatile the issue of the separation of church and state remains in our country. Our little crisis in Seattle has played out in various forms in many other communities and in the media. It shows that the majority opinion in the Jewish community was correct in its assessment that displaying the menorah on public land could exacerbate latent anti-Jewish feelings.

But it also demonstrates that there is a need in our community and elsewhere in our country to be more proactive in teaching about cultural pluralism and in promoting cultural diversity in our public spaces. And that is something genuinely worth striving for.

Rabbi Anson Laytner is executive director of the Greater Seattle Chapter of the American Jewish Committee.