Tenafly eruv mapMap of Tenafly eruv.

The Suffolk County Court decision June 30 calling on Southampton to allow an eruv Jewish boundary hinges on the word, “display.” It fails to acknowledge that eruvim are widely displayed on Synagogue and Google websites.

The decision of Suffolk Supreme Court Justice Joseph Farneti, the full text of which has been obtained by this website (no easy task) has this section:

“The issue is a straightforward legal one: does a lechi fall within the ambit of the Sign Ordinance, i.e., does it display a message, symbol, etc. Conspicuously absent from the [SH Zoning Board of Appeals] inspector’s analysis and conclusion is the definition of ‘display.’

“In the Dictionary, as a verb, ‘display’ means ‘to put out or spread before the view…to make evident…to make noticeable’ and as a noun, ‘a setting or presentation of something in open view…a clear sign or evidence.’

“Thus, the uncontroverted testimony before the Zoning Board of Appeals that lechis are not discernable to the community establishes that lechis do not display a message or delineation and, thus, do not come within the ambit of the Sign Ordinance.”

Justice Farneti cites the 2002 Tenafly, N.J., Appeals Court decision allowing an eruv as saying that the lechis on utility poles there were “virtually invisible.”

What Puts Something “In Open View!?”

The internet, the web, that is what puts something in “open view.”

People don’t examine telephone poles to find out something. They go to the web.

The June 30 decision, citing Tenafly as an example of eruvim that are “virtually invisible,” ignores the fact that the Tenafly eruv and virtually all other eruvim are highly visible on websites of the Synagogues and/or Google maps.

Englewood eruv mapEnglewood eruv abuts Tenafly eruv.

Explanations of eruvim are on such websites and numerous other websites. A detailed discussion of eruvim, which convert public property into private property, is in this report on a 20-minute discussion of them by Rabbis and Jewish leaders. The report contains a link to the transcript of the session.

Eruv scholar Prof. Charlotte Fonrobert of Stanford University has said that the fact that eruvim are “readily accessible” on the web destroys claims of invisibility.

Here is the huge Tenafly eruv, plain as day on the website of the Tenafly Eruv Assn.

The eruv territory is in yellow. Much more visible are other eruvim web maps such as the one for Manhattan and the one for Westhampton Beach

One of the flaws in court decisions on eruvim is that they cite precedents from decades ago, long before the web.

Westhampton Takes a Fall

The June 30 decision notes that Westhampton Beach “acknowledged that it has no regulation regarding the establishment of an eruv and conceded that a lechi is not a ‘sign’ under its sign ordinance.”

That is not what is in the 18-page 2008 opinion by Prof. Marci Hamilton of Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law that was written for WHB.

“As set forth in the ‘Purpose” section of 197-30 (see p. 16, supra) the Village has a range of compelling interests in a closely regulated sign ordinance in Westhampton Beach, applicable on both private and on public property,” wrote Prof. Hamilton.

That has been ignored by the current WHB administration headed by Mayor Marie Moore. Her administration has caved on the eruv issue even though there’s copious evidence that the vast majority of residents are against permanent imposition of religious symbols on public property.

Previous Mayor Conrad Teller had estimated that 90-95% of WHB residents are against the eruv. Newcomers Brian Tymann and Rob Rubio were elected June 19 by large margins on a platform that opposed “any exemption” to WHB sign laws.

Tymann said, “I personally do not support the general concept of a religious demarcation on public property.”

WHB Website Ignores Farneti Decision

The WHB website has a section called “Eruv Litigation” but the last entry is for Dec. 22, 2014.

Since WHB is specifically mentioned by Justice Farneti, it should be on the WHB website along with numerous other relative documents such as the 6,000-word transcript of the conference with Federal Judge Kathleen Tomlinson Feb. 26, 2015. That is a public document in which both sides present their viewpoints in detail.

Most of the scores of entries on the WHB website under “Eruv Litigation” are from 2011.

The Moore administration refuses to put the eruv topic on the agenda of the monthly meeting of the board at which members of the public are allowed to speak after all other business has been conducted.

Attempts by this reporter to engage in a conversation with Moore either on the telephone or in person have been rebuffed since January. Attempts to do the same with Rubio and Tymann, as well as incumbent trustees Ralph Urban and Charles Palmer have also gone nowhere. WHB has a $9.8 million budget but no allocation for a PR person or outside PR counsel.

The Moore administration, abandoning the fight against an eruv while SH and Quogue continue to do battle, is not representing the wishes of the WHB community.