
Leaders of the Hampton Synagogue gave high praise during Saturday’s Shabbat services to the religious boundary that was established in Westhampton Beach earlier this month, hailing it as “a remarkable success and achievement.”
Though the Sunset Avenue synagogue claims neutrality on the issue, its founding rabbi, Marc Schneier, lauded the recently established boundary, known as an eruv, during the Saturday morning service.
“We celebrate this triumph, a triumph I have always seen as a victory for civil rights, justice and religious freedom,” Rabbi Schneier said in front of a crowd of several hundred people.
On Friday evening, before the start of the Sabbath, which in the Jewish faith begins at sundown on Friday, Rabbi Schneier blessed the eruv, which was created roughly three weeks earlier. Under Jewish law, those who are within the eruv’s boundaries are permitted to push and carry objects—including keys, wheelchairs and strollers—on the Sabbath, acts that are normally forbidden by Jewish law.
The boundary was put in place by the East End Eruv Association, or EEEA, a nonprofit that has championed the establishment of an eruv since 2011, engaging the villages of Westhampton Beach and Quogue, as well as Southampton Town, in multiple lawsuits that dispute local sign ordinances, utility pole licensing and First Amendment limitations. Some of that litigation is still ongoing.
The eruv is designated by clear strips of PVC that have been posted on 45 utility poles throughout the village, although members of the EEEA have refused to disclose their exact location, and PSEG Long Island, the power company that licensed the majority of the poles, has not responded to multiple requests inquiring where the markers, called lechis, are located.
During Saturday’s Shabbat service, Hampton Synagogue President Morris Tuchman also celebrated the establishment of the boundary and praised the efforts of the EEEA, particularly the work done by Robert Sugarman, the group’s lead attorney and whose Manhattan-based firm, Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP, has been representing the EEEA pro bono since 2011. “Without them there would be no eruv today,” Mr. Tuchman said, later adding: “This is a great day for us all.”
When the first rumblings of the eruv arose in 2008, representatives from the Hampton Synagogue told the Westhampton Beach Village Board that, under Jewish law, a proclamation is required from a governmental body—either at the village, town, county, state or federal level—in order for an eruv to be ratified. The EEEA has since backed away from that stance, and now maintains that no such action is required and the eruv is fully operational.
In spite of criticism from their opposition—namely, the village and another nonprofit known as the Jewish People for the Betterment of Westhampton Beach—for this change of course, the EEEA stands firm in that it has followed all the necessary steps in establishing an eruv within the village.
“People can question all they want, but the reality is the East End Eruv Association sought appropriate guidance from rabbinic authorities every step of the way,” EEEA spokesman Hank Sheinkopf said.
While the eruv does allow certain activities within its boundaries on the Sabbath, others are still forbidden, most notably driving. Also, these rules are primarily followed by Orthodox Jews, while Reform Jews typically do not adhere to parts of the religion they view to be archaic.
Still, the establishment of the eruv has raised questions about how it will impact property values within the village and whether it will cause an influx of Jewish residents. On Saturday, a man who identified himself as Isaac Hager, a principal of North Development Group in Brooklyn, speculated that the boundary would drive real estate prices up within the next three years.
Mr. Hager predicted that the eruv would attract young, upper-class Orthodox families to the area because they now know that they can transport their young children in strollers to temple on Saturdays and high holy days. He also said he does not think the eruv would attract ultra-traditional Hasidic Jews, the likes of which have created enclaves in parts of Brooklyn that have eruvin. Mr. Hager equated this segment of the Jewish population to a “cult” and said many of them would not be able to afford homes in the Hamptons.
“The eruv will bring in professionals,” he said. “Lawyers, doctors, businesspeople who do not want to be part of a cult.”
“We celebrate this triumph, a triumph I have always seen as a victory for civil rights, justice and religious freedom."
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Holy creeping Jesus!
Watching the process has been distasteful at best.
It has been in communities around the world for thousands of years. And in the USA as well. This is not like a new invention. It does not affect me so I do not care.
"The eruv is designated by clear strips of PVC that have been posted on 45 utility poles throughout the village, although members of the EEEA have refused to disclose their exact location, and PSEG Long Island, the power company that licensed the majority of the poles, has not responded to multiple requests inquiring where the markers, called lechis, are located."
So far we have spent over $100,000. Let us file more appeals, and waste more money on something that is allowed all over the usa (and world). Somehow we should be special and not allow it for our JEwish community
So far we have spent over $100,000. Let us file more appeals, and waste more money on something that is allowed all over the usa (and world). Somehow we should be special and not allow it for our JEwish community
> fighting something that does not affect us in any manner.
What do you mean by "we" and "us?"
You don't live in the area under discussion, so knock off the "we" and "us!"
I live a lot closer to Westhampton Beach than you do.
In civil law in the United States, winning by imposing legal fees upon your opponent in litigation is an accepted practice. One simply prolongs a case (or threatens to do so) until the other party decides that it's just too expensive to proceed (and settles or concedes), or simply runs out of money.
This is the totality of the legal strategy of the rabbi/Hampton Synagogue/EEEA - and your comment shows that it is working.
It is vital to these folks interest ...more that this case never proceed to the Court of Appeals. As long as they can contain it at the district level, it will be decided on the superficial basis of local signage laws. However, at the appellate level, the primary focus will be on its constitutionality, and, since it is a flagrant violation of the establishment clause, the verdict is preordained. Such a verdict would require the dismantling of every eruv in New York state, Connecticut and Vermont.
Rather than allow this to happen, the rabbi et al., in the face of a determined prosecution by the village, will voluntarily dismember the eruv and terminate their opposition before the Court of Appeals has a chance to rule.
All the village has to do is stand fast and spend a little more money and time and this egoistic attempt to impose the religious will of an elitist minority on the secular residents of Westhampton Beach will be history.
As a lagniappe, they trot out the standard accusation that everyone who criticizes them for their solipsistic, unneighborly, deceitful and elitist behavior is an anti-Semite. While this is usually enough to send elected officials running for cover, it has been less effective in this case due to the egregious nature of their transgressions.
Nevertheless, the odds are that this strategy will be successful in the case of Westhampton Beach which is a shame since a victory for its citizenry is on the horizon. Since the eruv is such a flagrant violation of the establishment clause, there is no doubt that the Court of Appeals for the 2nd circuit will rule it unconstitutional. This would void every eruv currently existing in all of New York State, Connecticut and Vermont. Rather than be the cause of this, the eruv proponents will voluntarily disable the eruv at the point where it becomes apparent that their continued litigation would have that regional effect.
All Westhampton Beach need do is stay the course for a few more years.
Absent any governmental endorsement, there's no Constitutional ...more issue.