Hamptons Libraries Mull Eruv Exhibit; Here's ours

Since Hampton libraries show no interest so far in exhibiting the mountain of legal filings on the eruv that is terrorizing homeowners and costing them huge amounts, as well as tarring and feathering them as “bigots,” we have compiled our own electronic exhibit.

Links include the June 16, 2014 findings of U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathleen Tomlinson on facts and law (59 pages); the Sept. 23, 2014 memorandum and order of the U.S. District Court (14 pages); the Sept. 24, 2014 memorandum and order of the same court (38 pages) and the Jan. 13, 2011 lawsuit of the East End Eruv Assn. (27 pages). Total of just these filings is 138 pages.

One of the other links is to our exclusive research on the costs of this dispute to the towns -- $884,837 in payments to outside law firms so far. Formal Freedom of Information requests were needed to obtain this data. No other news medium has carried this figure.

We’re particularly disappointed in the New York Times which has ducked this issue for nearly two years although NYT reporter Nicholas Confessore is the son of Quogue library president Lynda Confessore. Last NYT story was Feb. 4, 2013.

Verizon, PSEG/LIPA Bust on Towns

Also disappointing is that Verizon and PSEG/LIPA have jumped in against the towns using their outside law firms and own sizable legal departments. They know the vast majority of their customers are against religious use of utility poles. What kind of customer relations is this?

Verizon denies having anything to do with the erection of the thin plastic lechis which must go from the bottom to the tops of the poles. Who helped? Did PSEG/LIPA or Cablevision supply the “sky buckets” that reach to the tops?

A rabbi must inspect every lechi every Friday before sundown to make sure not one is disturbed. Otherwise, a “door” is open and the entire boundary is invalid. Whose equipment is being used for this? Cablevision installed the lechis in Tenafly.

The link on the legal costs includes the 78-item docket for Southampton alone. It is a frightening document, a huge pile of obtuse legalisms that includes pleas by Judge Tomlinson for the parties to show restraint.

One filing, she notes, is 70 billion bytes.

What Is “Secular” or “Religious” Is Issue

Readers who open the links will be astounded at the complexity that surrounds a very simple issue—whether “lechis” on utility poles are religious symbols or not.

Of course they are. Comparing them to St. Patrick’s Day decorations or numbers, which the lawsuits do, does not mean Orthodox Jews are being discriminated against when the towns nix lechis.

The lechis, even though hard to see, carry with them profound religious meanings including co-opting everything behind the poles as the “domain” of the observant. Neither St. Patrick’s Day signs nor other markings carry such meanings. A giant favor is being done to one religious sect that cannot be duplicated to any other.

Courts, which are supposed to be rational, cannot get their arms around the religious meanings of the eruv. They’re obsessed with their physical appearance, saying a “reasonable” observer cannot find anything religious in them. But the observant do.

Courts have no business trying to grapple with religious concepts. It’s like trying to grab a fistful of fog and put it in your pocket. There’s no way for the hand and fog to interface. It’s like people who speak different languages trying to converse. We’re reminded of the melody, “I Talk to the Trees, but They Don’t Listen to Me.” Religions don’t belong in courts and courts don’t belong in religions.

Exhibit Includes Media Coverage

Below are links to legal documents as well as media coverage which tries to make heads or tails of tortuous, almost endless legal citations and reasoning. Media have not shown the willingness to wade through the extensive filings. Editorial staffs are down to the barebones these days, a weakness that voluminous legal filings can exploit.In physical form, the filings would make a compelling exhibit at one or more of the libraries. The only reply so far is that one library would take it up at its next board meeting Feb. 11.

This legal brawl could never take place in France which knows what is secular and what isn’t. There are no eruvim in Paris and only two small ones in outlying districts in all of France.

Exhibits in the eruv dispute as of this date are:

--Feb. 4, 2015 Eruv fight in WHB not worth the dissension

--Feb. 2, 2015 Lechis needed for Eruv in WHB can't be found on utility poles

--Aug. 18, 2008 Tenafly, N.J. paid $300,000+ in legal fees to local eruv assn. which won in court

--Jan. 20, 2015 Three town libraries urged to have exhibits on eruv battle

--Jan. 28, 2015 WHB trustees skip eruv; Tablet discusses Miami Beach eruv

--Sept. 24, 2014 38-page memorandum, Judge Tomlinson.

--Sept. 23, 2014 14-page memorandum, Judge Tomlinson.

--June 16, 2014 findings, 59-pages; Verizon & LIPA vs. WHB, SH & Quogue.

--Jan. 13, 2011 EEEA lawsuit vs. three towns and personally against 17 officials.

--July 11, 2014 filing by Debevoise & Plimpton in behalf of Verizon New York and LIPA vs. WHB.

--2009: UCLA Law Prof. Alexandra Susman authors 34 pages saying eruvim violate church/state separation.

--Jan. 6, 2015, U.S. Appeals Court allows WHB eruv

--Jan. 7, 2015, 27east.com covers Appeals Court ruling.

--March 20, 2013, Verizon New York and LIPA vs. WHB, SH and Quogue on LIPA’s right to license pole attachments.

--March 20, 2013, Erica Weisgerber of Debevoise & Plimpton, representing Verizon New York vs. WHB on Quogue’s refusal to stipulate authenticity of agreement regarding pole attachments.

--March 20, 2013, Verizon New York and LIPA vs. WHB, SH and Quogue on right of Verizon and LIPA to license pole attachments.

--April 4, 1986, Pole Attachment Agreement, New York Telephone.

--Aug. 8, 2014, Eruv erected in WHB, 27east .com coverage.

--Sept. 18, 2014, Jewish People Opposed to the Eruv vow continued fight against WHB eruv.

--Chabad.org explains what an eruv is.