Aug 20, 2014 10:42 AM

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.”