Hampton Libraries to Hear Eruv Issue

Library boards in Southampton and Westhampton Beach this week will hear O'Dwyer reps on the legal assault by those seeking to impose an "eruv" Jewish religious boundary on SH, WHB and Quogue.

The libraries are fulfilling their mission of keeping an open mind to what citizens have to say. The SH and WHB boards give ten minutes at their monthly meetings to remarks by the public. The SH meeting is Feb. 9 at 5 p.m. and the WHB meeting is at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 11.

This is the opposite of the closed-door, stonewalling policies of the elected officials of the three towns. None of them has had a public hearing on the issue that has cost the towns $884,837 so far in legal bills. The officials are not available for press conferences. They duck phone calls from local media such as the Southampton Press and its 27east.com online version. We get the same treatment.

Sugarman

A note of urgency has entered this issue with remarks by Weil, Gotshal & Manges lawyer Robert Sugarman that the East End Eruv Assn., initiator of three lawsuits against the towns, is seeking reimbursement for its legal costs.

Towns Could Pay "Millions"

Sugarman, whose firm won $300,000+ from Tenafly, N.J., in 2006 after the town lost litigation mounted by the Tenafly Eruv Assn. Inc., told 27east.com Feb. 4 that, even though Weil has been working "pro bono," there has been "a significant expenditure of time and numerous court fees and we will seek to be reimbursed for those costs."

SH, WHB and Quogue already face claims by EEEA president Marvin Tenzer in 2011 that victory by EEEA could bring a "multimillion-dollar award" to it. The group claims that animus to Orthodox Jews is behind their refusal to allow eruvim, a boundary created by utility poles marked with lechis, 5/8" by 15-foot plastic strips.

An attempt by Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Hampton Synagogue to "educate" WHB citizens about the eruv "was met largely with further appeals to fear and prejudice expressed by village officials, members of the community, and groups such as Jewish People Opposed to the Eruv," says the lawsuit.

WHB Town Meetings Ignore the Eruv

WHB trustees hold two-hour public meetings without any mention of the word "eruv." There is extensive discussion of other topics including the proposal to have "two police chiefs" to supervise ten cops, which the New York Post derided as "two sheriffs for a one-horse town."

WHB and SH won't answer any of our questions unless Freedom of Information forms are filed. WHB Police Chief Trevor Gonce won't deal with us until we present "credentials" but neither he nor any WHB staffer will tell us what they are. The WHB board allowed retiring Police Chief Ray Dean to collect $403,714 for 531 days of unused sick, vacation and personal time, prompting the NYP headline: "Charge this cop with robbery." That law is still on the books.

Westhampton Library

27east.com said "multiple requests" for the location of the WHB lechis, supposedly placed on utility poles last summer, have been ignored by EEEA and PSEG Long Island. It has filed a Freedom of Information request with WHB for those locations. Residents have told odwyerpr.com that they have been unable to find any such markings.

Knowledgeable Oppose Eruvim

O'Dwyer reps will appear before the SH library board tonight at 5 p.m. and the WHB board on Wednesday. Both boards agreed to listen to the reps for ten minutes.

Among materials to be presented is a statement by Ariela Aharon, an American-Israeli Jew who says she makes regular use of an eruv on the Sabbath. She wrote for odwyerpr.com that she is "deeply troubled" by the "costly litigation" of the EEEA that accuses the three towns of "anti-Semitism."

Rogers Memorial Library

"The timeless Jewish saying, ‘Love peace, pursue peace, applies most judiciously here, yet the EEEA chose ironically to defy the Talmud and neither love peace nor pursue peace in its pursuit of religious freedom," she wrote.

An eruv can make Sabbath observance easier but the absence of one "does not, by any means, make Sabbath observance impossible," she wrote.

David Rattiner Knocks Eruvim

Another exhibit is an article by David Rattiner, son of Dan Rattiner, founder of Dan's Papers, the weekly free lifestyle paper that is ubiquitous in the Hamptons. He slammed eruvim in a March 29, 2012 editorial.

Noting his father is Jewish and his mother is Catholic, and that he attended Catholic schools in Sag Harbor and is "comfortable attending church on Sundays" as well as celebrating Jewish holidays," Rattiner called the proposed eruv in WHB "a horribly dividing and absolutely combative issue that has caused nothing but embarrassment and conflict."

Pinpointing one of the main arguments in the lawsuits—that hardly anyone knows eruvim are there except the observant—he wrote: "The argument that an eruv should be allowed because it is so small and is no big deal is invalid because obviously it is a big deal to the entire community of WHB…something that further divides us as a community."

S.H. Lecht posted on odwyerpr.com that "The Talmud states that an eruv must be one that promotes social peace. If there is any type of dissension as a result of the eruv, it is not valid."

Lecht also noted there is no evidence of an eruv in WHB although such claims were made last August. No one can find any of the required "lechis" on any telephone poles. Another exhibit will be a 34-page article by UCLA Law Prof. Alexandra Susman which declares eruvim to be unconstitutional.

Church/State Argument is Decisive

The strongest argument against eruvim is that they breach the separation of church and state principle on which America is based.

Framers of the Constitution spent three-and-a-half months on it and left "God" out. The preamble invokes the "people of the U.S." and not "any sort of God," says Theocracy Watch.

The Constitution forbids any religious test to hold office. Benjamin Franklin asked the Constitutional Convention on June 28, 1787, to have a prayer said. That was rejected.

The framers of the Constitution and no doubt most Americans of that time had their fill of religions that had caused so much death and destruction in Europe. They wanted a nation founded on rationality, not superstition and belief in the supernatural.

The eruvim that EEEA wants to erect in SH, WHB and Quogue are based on irrational dogma rife with "rules" that trample common sense. For instance, since "work" of any type is forbidden on the Sabbath, the observant cannot carry an umbrella to temple even if it is pouring rain because to open it would be "building a tent."

Big Whoppers Being Told

Residents of the three Hampton towns not only have to deal with powerful forces wedded to irrational dogma but with major falsehoods that are being promoted.

One is that the Supreme Court has somehow sided with eruvim proponents. Typical is this item by the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center June 23, 2003 that says the Court's refusal to hear Tenafly's request for a hearing on the decision of a U.S. Court of Appeals in favor of the city's eruv meant that the Court "implicitly agreed with the Appeal Court's understanding."

The Supreme Court did no such thing. Its refusal to take up the issue cannot be used by either side. The Court gets some 2,000 cases a year and only takes a few. It makes no comment on the rest nor can anyone draw any conclusions from its silence.

The local Federal District Court had ruled that the eruv in Tenafly, which was erected on "a few hundred utility poles," was an illegal use of such poles and ordered the markers removed. The Circuit Court of Appeals then ruled that since Tenafly, a city of 13,000, had allowed house numbers, church signs and orange ribbons for student protests on the poles, it could not deny the eruv markers. The issue of separation of church/state was not covered.

Another whopper is that an eruv was erected in WHB last August. There are no signs of one. WHB, EEEA, Verizon and LPEG/LIPA refuse to take questions on this.

Online Exhibit Is Available to Library Users

O'Dwyer reps will deliver about 200 pages of materials, including legal filings, stories and editorials, to the SH and WHB boards with the suggestion they be made part of the library's reading materials.

There is no need for patrons to actually visit the library since 22 documents (so far) are in this link. Most library visitors are familiar with the many web devices that shorten URLs that may be more than 200 characters.