Holiday or Holy Day

Although the Third Street business district is only a quasi-governmental organization, the space at Wilshire and Third is clearly public property. How does the daily lighting of a menorah during Hanukkah on public property not violate the Establishment Clause when the chicken-wire nativity jails that were finally barred from Ocean Park obviously do? Doesn't it trivialize Judaism to excuse the lighting of menorot by setting the tradition on a secular par with decorating Christmas trees? Dressing evergreens is a rite picked up from pre-Christian Central Europe and has no religious symbolism whatsoever. It's true that nativity scenes are a clearer First Amendment violation, having no existence independent of Christian mythology, whereas the menorah (or at least the graphic representation of a particular historical menorah) has been given a secular role by being adopted by Israel as a symbol of the Jewish people, but as Israel has evolved toward theocracy the identification of the menorah with the State of Israel raises questions of its own. Anyway, sticking to the question of separation of church and state, shouldn't the menorah be on private property every bit as much as the creche?