Arts & Culture
License to Carry: The State of Eruvim in America Today
By Ashley Tedesco / June 25, 2009
San Francisco now has its first eruv thanks to congregation Adath Israel. Eruvs are important to observant Jews who adhere to the halakhic prohibition against the 39 acts of work on Shabbat, which prevents them from being able to carry anything outside of their homes. The eruv allows those Jews to carry within its boundaries (roughly 20 square blocks), enabling them to wheel strollers, carry purses, and ultimately allow Jewish families to attend Shabbat services together, with the little ones in tow.
Gone are the days when ensuring the eruv was still kosher meant tracking your rabbi down–the eruv has its own Twitter account and will tweet any necessary updates. Fabulous.
Several dozen eruvs exist across the country, in places one might expect, like New York City and Boca Raton, Florida, but also places you might not, like Mequon, Wisconsin and Overland Park, Kansas. In fact, eruvim exist in 25 states and the District of Columbia. I’ll admit I got that information from Wikipedia–eruv.org hasn’t published their complete directory yet.
There are also a handful of college campuses enclosed by eruvim, including nine of the fifteen participant universities of Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC), as well as Harvard University and, of course, Yeshiva University.
Debate over the construction of an eruv even played a role in the election of trustees on Long Island recently.
Stamford, Connecticut and Norfolk, Virginia are among the "emerging Orthodox communities" enticing families relocating from more quintessentially Orthodox neighborhoods in the greater New York area and beyond. Even my home state of Pennsylvania features two "emerging communities," including Allentown and its capital, Harrisburg.
Personally, in my own learning and adapting process of finding exactly where I fit in the Jewish community, I’ve toyed with a lot of ideas and observances falling into the "conservadox" gray area. I’m okay with no tweeting on Shabbos and I’ve toyed with the idea of shutting my Blackberry off completely in favor of peace, quiet, and reading books. Prohibitions against toting my matching Coach bag along with me when I (drive) to synagogue, however, have not quite made it into my personal level of observance. Still, though, I think it’s important to take note that eruvim are continuing to pop up in observant Jewish communities across the country and around the world. Whether it’s a growing trend is difficult to say, as is whether their appearance means a rise in Orthodox Judaism or so-called "liberal Jews" of other movements adopting some of the more traditional observances, but it’s something to think about nonetheless. Jews are staking their claim in cities and towns across the country and we’re here to stay, eruv and all.
On a somewhat unrelated note, anybody interested in Mikvah shopping should check out Lakewood, New Jersey–by some odd anomaly, the town has ten mikvahs. That’s more than even Manhattan. The only single location in the country with more? Jewcy’s hometown, Brooklyn.
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…I said "I’ve toyed with a lot of ideas and observances falling into the ‘conservadox’ gray area," not that I considered myself "conservadox." Right now, I consider myself unaffiliated and exploring. And for the record, I generally do turn off my cell phone and computer for Shabbos–I was merely making an example out of Twitter. I am obviously aware that simply refraining from tweeting doesn’t make a person Shabbos-observant. Anyway, I’m more concerned with the idea of peace and inner exploration than the idea of avoiding ‘work’ or melachot.
Thanks for this article. I am both a "liberal" Jew and an "Orthodox" Jew… politically liberal, Orthodox in Jewish practice. Thank goodness for eruvim because I wouldn’t be able to go to shul without one. They do not violate the spirit of shabbos unless they extend too far (I have questions about the ones that contain most of the island of manhattan, for instance). There was a time when many families lived around a courtyard or in a crowded neighborhood so an eruv truly did encompass a shared private space – Today an eruv stands in for that in our much more spread-out neighborhoods.
I have a question for you, though. How is it "Conservadox" to break shabbos? Simply refraining from tweeting doesn’t make you shabbos observant (you apparently use your cell phone durring shabbos?) and since both the Conservative and Orthodox movements believe in the importance of keeping shabbos and actually have many similarities of opinion on it (both of which exclude the ability to use a cell phone on shabbos) I don’t see what you mean by "Conservadox". In my experience that term usually means people who keep kosher and keep shabbos but happen to have some non-Orthodox beliefs or eat non-kosher dairy outside the house or don’t adhere to every mitzvah. I’ve never met a "Conservadox" person who didn’t keep shabbos, though. I don’t much care what you do and don’t do, I am just questioning your use of that label.
A modern Torquemada
PRECEDENTIAL
Filed October 24, 2002
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 01-3301
TENAFLY ERUV ASSOCIATION, INC.;
CHAIM BOOK; YOSIFA BOOK;
STEPHANIE DARDICK GOTTLIEB;
STEPHEN BRENNER,
Appellants
v.
THE BOROUGH OF TENAFLY;
ANN MOSCOVITZ, individually and
in her official capacity as Mayor
of the Borough of Tenafly;
CHARLES LIPSON; MARTHA B KERGE;
RICHARD WILSON; ARTHUR PECK;
JOHN T. SULLIVAN, each individually
and in their official capacities as
Council Members of the Borough of Tenafly
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of New Jersey
(D.C. Civil Action No. 00-cv-06051)
District Judge: Honorable William G. Bassler
Argued March 21, 2002
Before: NYGAARD, ROTH and AMBRO, Circuit Judge s
(Opinion filed October 24, 2002)
Robert G. Sugarman, Esquire
(Argued)
Harris J. Yale, Esquire
Craig L. Lowenthal, Esquire
Weil, Gotshal & Manges
767 Fifth Avenue, 27th Floor
New York, NY 10153
Richard D. Shapiro, Esquire
Hellring, Lindeman, Goldstein &
Siegal
One Gateway Center, 8th Floor
Newark, NJ 07102
Nathan Lewin, Esquire (Argued)
Alyza D. Lewin, Esquire
Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris,
Glovsky & Popeo
701 Pennsylvania Avenue,
N.W., Suite 900
Washington, D.C. 20004
Attorneys for Appellants
Bruce S. Rosen, Esquire
McCusker, Anselmi, Rosen, Carvelli
& Walsh
127 Main Street
Chatham, NJ 07928
Walter A. Lesnevich, Esquire
Lesnevich & Marzano-Lesnevich
15 West Railroad Avenue
Tenafly, NJ 07670
Noah R. Feldman, Esquire (Argued)
New York University Law School
40 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
Attorneys for Appellees
2
Kevin J. Hasson, Esquire
Anthony R. Picarello, Jr., Esquire
Roman P. Storzer, Esquire
Derek L. Gaubatz, Esquire
The Becket Fund for Religious
Liberty
1350 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.,
Suite 605
Washington, D.C. 20036
Nathan J. Diament, Esquire
Union of Orthodox Jewish
Congregations
1640 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
Abba Cohen, Esquire
Agudath Israel of America
1730 Rhode Island Avenue, Ste. 504
Washington, D.C. 20036
David Zwiebel, Esquire
Mordechai Biser, Esquire
Agudath Israel of America
42 Broadway, 14th Floor
New York, NY 10004
Ronald K. Chen, Esquire
Rutgers Constitutional Litigation
Clinic
123 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Edward Barocas, Esquire
J.C. Salyer, Esquire
American Civil Liberties Union of
New Jersey Foundation
35 Halsey Street, Suite 4B
Newark, NJ 07102
Attorneys for Amicus-Curiae
3
OPINION OF THE COURT
AMBRO, Circuit Judge:
The primary issues presented in this appeal from the
District Court’s order denying preliminary injunctive relief
are whether the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses of
the First Amendment allow the Borough of Tenafly, New
Jersey, which has permitted various secularly motivated
violations of a facially neutral ordinance, to invoke that
ordinance against comparable religiously motivated acts by
Orthodox Jews. Because there is no evidence that the acts
in question are expressive, we hold that the Free Speech
Clause does not apply. We further hold, however, that the
Borough’s selective enforcement of its ordinance likely
violated the Free Exercise Clause. Because the other
requirements for injunctive relief are satisfied, we reverse
and direct the District Court to issue a preliminary
injunction.
I. Background
An ordinance in the Borough of Tenafly, which
encompasses 4.4 square miles and has a population of
13,806,1 provides in pertinent part: "No person shall place
any sign or advertisement, or other matter upon any pole,
tree, curbstone, sidewalk or elsewhere, in any public street
or public place, excepting such as may be authorized by
this or any other ordinance of the Borough." Tenafly, N.J.,
Ordinance 691 Article VIII(7) (1954).2 Although Ordinance
691 does not allow Borough officials to make exceptions on
a case-by-case basis, in practice they have often done so.
House number signs nailed to utility poles in plain view are
_________________________________________________________________
1. See Borough of Tenafly, About Tenafly, at http://www.tenaflynj.org/
about.htm (last visited September 20, 2002).
2. Our description of the facts is based on our independent review of the
record because, as explained in more detail below, the First Amendment
bars us from deferring to the District Court’s factual findings unless they
involve witness credibility. See Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian &
Bisexual Group of Boston, 515 U.S. 557, 567 (1995).
4
I will say hooooray for eruvs, so if my kid wants to leave the house for a walk I can a) pick him up after 30 seconds when he gets bored of walking, or b) give him snacks when he realizes he hasn’t eaten in 4 whole minutes.
Also, for those looking to Lakewood as the new hipster Jewish enclave simply on the basis of their mikvah selection, beware rigorous modesty customs and lots of black suits on 90 degree days. Those Yids are hardco’ for sho’.
I never got the point of eruvim that extended beyond the bounds of one’s hom. If the spirit of the law directs that you not carry things outside your house, or visit others, and instead just stay at home, why violate it? I mean, the answer "it’s easier" doesn’t really make sense to me, considering religious people follow so many other bizarre commandments. Does this one just entail a breakdown on familial/communal communications that is just too inconvenient, e.g. because the Sabbath was historically the only day of rest for Jews (did Jews even rest on the Sabbath in the old ‘shtetl’ times anyway?)?
Also–Alice da spambot–go fuck yourself.
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