Hampton's Eruv (Jewish Religious Boundary) May Be A Fake

The reported erection of an Orthodox Jewish religious boundary called an eruv in Westhampton Beach last summer was a “publicity stunt,” local critics initially said. They could be right since evidence of the eruv is lacking.

Residents have scoured the telephone poles in the vicinity of the Hampton Synagogue but can’t find any of the 10-15 ft. clear plastic strips called lechis that are supposed to be on the entire lengths of 27 poles. Normally such strips are black plastic and easy to see.

The voluminous legal filings against WHB, Southampton and Quogue by the East End Eruv Assn. stress that the markers are “almost invisible.”

The markers, if there, advertise that “WHB welcomes the Orthodox with open arms,” say critics. No other religion or group would get such a welcome, they add.

EEEA plans to erect eruvim in Southampton and Quogue. All three Hampton’s communities are fighting the moves. EEEA responded to the rejections by filing multi-part lawsuits.

Jumping into the fray on the side of the EEEA have been PSEG/LIPA and Verizon. Public Service Electric & Gas of N.J. is operating LIPA for the next 12 years. Both sued the towns when they wouldn’t agree to allow eruvim.

Two of the biggest law firms in the world are also battling the three towns—Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Debevoise & Plimpton.

Libraries, Colleges Have Role to Play

Local libraries and colleges can have a role to play in what has become a complicated and expensive mixture of PR, law, politics and religion. Elected officials are mostly silent on the issue, awaiting court decisions.

Gov. David Paterson of New York was enlisted in the PR campaign by Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Hampton Synagogue. Paterson addressed 1,000 at the Synagogue in early August 2008, saying he supported erection of the eruv. Paterson added, “There is a new sheriff in town” and drew “a roar of approval from the crowd,” the Jewish Daily Forward reported.

Libraries, whose stated mission is “education,” could perform such a role by exhibiting the massive legal actions against the towns and explaining what an eruv is. The filings have cost the towns $884,837 thus far in fees from outside law firms. Town lawyers are also working on the suits.

Media Coverage Declines

Media have pulled back lately on their coverage of the issue. The Southampton Press and its 27east.com online version have carried a number of stories but have yet to cover the legal costs to the towns nor the fact that the towns face paying all the legal bills of the EEEA plus “damages.”

The last story in the New York Times on the eruv battle was Feb. 4, 2013. NYT reporter Nicholas Confessore is the son of Quogue Library president Lynda Confessore.

The case is proving to be a bonanza for outside law firms (78 docket entries for SH and 70 for WH so far).

A similar battle is taking place in Miami Beach where an eruv that was erected in Pine Tree Park drew a protest from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Supporters of FFRF said the eruv was taken down, thus invalidating other eruvim in Miami Beach. City officials say they are investigating.

Billions have been earned by law firms in the past couple of decades since the average appeal process for a capital case takes 14 years. It costs California $307 million per execution when life imprisonment would accomplish the same purpose of removing the offender from society.

Thirty-two states still permit executions while 18 don’t.

Stony Brook Is Nearest College

Stony Brook University, a 45-minute drive from WHB, has 24,000 students and a major journalism department. It has no separate PR sequence. The Stony Brook community is surrounded by an eruv.

Among the 33 faculty members is Dean Howard Schneider who was with Newsday for 35 years and was the founding dean of the department. Several stories on the eruvim battle have been sent to him as possible subject matter for his students.

Dean Miller, former executive editor of the Post Register in Idaho Falls, Idaho, is director of the News Literacy Center. Other faculty include James Klurfeld who was at Newsday 40 years and Steven Reiner who was at CBS News for more than 10 years. He won several national Emmy Awards. He has also been an editor for The Atlantic magazine.

Others on the faculty have extensive news backgrounds.

Visiting professor is actor Alan Alda, who hosted the PBS series “Scientific American Frontiers” which inspired him to fund the “Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.”

Stony Brook Southampton once had 470 students but it cut most of its programs in 2010 after losing $55 million in state financing over two years.

The 75 remaining students are on the graduate level in three areas—creative writing, theatre and marine science.

The eruv imbroglio would be a good topic for some of these writers. Fiction is often based on factual matter.

Schneier’s Problem: Expensive WHB

Rabbi Schneier faces the same problem that SBU faced with its Southampton campus—skyrocketing local costs and a changing population. A “Save the SBU Southampton Campus” move is afoot.

Rent for a summer for a typical house on the beach in WHB $235,000.

Houses inland may rent for $70K. A small house can be bought for a half million but much of the housing stock is above $750K and often in the millions.

Even a large group of singles would be hard-pressed to afford a house in WHB, Southampton or Quogue. It’s an academic issue anyway because the towns drove out all the noisy singles decades ago with strict laws that limit the number of unrelated people in a house.

That squeeze closed more than 22 nightclubs and restaurants alone in Southampton, reporter Brandon Quinn wrote in the Southampton Press last year. At least a dozen nightclubs and restaurants closed in WHB including Marakesh, the “Studio 54 of Long Island.” Three of the five gas stations closed. There are sizable vacant lots where Casey’s dance hall, the bowling alley, restaurants, and a major household appliance store used to be.

Schneier Needs Congregants

Schneier, who founded the Synagogue in 1990, looked for something to help bring in congregants. The Synagogue is owned by a private corporation rather than the congregants. It does not have to file public tax documents although it has an EIN (13-3048031). If it thought of selling the Synagogue, perhaps to an Orthodox congregation, which would require an eruv, it would have to file financial documents with the state.

Orthodox Jews tell us that many of them do all right without an eruv. A non-Jew or non-observing Jew can push someone in a wheelchair on the Sabbath if that is “hinted” at and not directly requested. Some rabbis allow wheelchairs to be pushed.

Keys can be carried as long as they are on a bracelet. Books, wallets, etc., can be dropped off at the Synagogue the day before. However, if it is raining, the Orthodox are not allowed to use an umbrella since opening it would be “work,” the equivalent of “building a tent.”

There was no need for mammoth lawsuits against the towns or accusations of anti-Semitism. Schneier and others made such charges the at the Aug. 13, 2008 “town hall meeting” at the Synagogue.

About 200 of the 600-member audience left the room after New York lawyer Joel Cohen, a member of the Synagogue’s eruv committee, read emails that opposed an increased Jewish presence in WHB. “F’in kikes—send them back to Israel, or, better yet, Germany,” read Cohen from an email, said a report by 27east.com. Cohen is a member of the legal team defending resigned speaker of the New York Assembly Sheldon Silver who is accused of accepting millions of dollars of payoff.

“We have seen the ugly head of anti-Semitism rise in this community,” Schneier is quoted as saying by the Daily Forward.

Schneier Takes Fifth Wife

Schneier has his own PR problems. He took as his fifth wife Gitty Leiner, a speech pathologist and “longtime girlfriend,” reported the Nov. 29, 2013 Forward.

It said the Rabbinical Council of America, representing “modern Orthodox Rabbis,” investigated whether Schneier, an RCA member, committed adultery with Leiner, a congregant, while still married to his fourth wife, Tobi Rubinstein Schneier.

However, the investigation was suspended because Schneier was legally barred from testifying by a judicial gag order “put in place during the bitter divorce negotiations between him and Rubinstein Schneier,” the Forward reported. There are no further reports on this.

Thetabletmag.com, which specializes in Jewish news and issues, published a 5,822-word essay on Schneier on June 15, 2011 by staffer Allison Hoffman. It said he makes "more than $500,000 yearly" and his lifestyle "depends on maintaining the attentions and patronage of the very rich." Income from his foundation in 2009, the latest year available from tax records, was $227,596. Hoffman said Schneier told her he earns $300,000 yearly from the Synagogue which also carries the mortgage on his house in Westhampton Beach. The essay recounts how Schneier enlisted producer Steven Spielberg as a major funder of the Synagogue.