EEEA GodzillaAfter holding out for six years, Quogue, N.Y., has succumbed to the blackmail of the East End Eruv Assn. which said put up our religious symbols permanently on your telephone poles or pay millions in fines and legal costs.

That is not an idle threat since the politicized courts, blind to the visibility of eruv markers on the web and in the media, contend that since they are barely visible on the telephone poles, they are not “signs” at all.

Further visibility was given to the eruvim by the Southampton Press which made the Quogue cave-in the top story in its March 10 edition, also carrying it on the 27east.com website.

An email to 27east.com on the cave-in captured the reaction of many: “What an utter scam—sue the villages and then selfishly have your way by not forcing them to pay your legal fees.”

The rationale for the cave-in is spelled out in the story. The East End Eruv Assn. has agreed not to seek millions in legal costs and fines if Quogue will allow religious symbols to be permanently affixed to 48 poles in the village.

Quogue Mayor Peter SartoriusQuogue Mayor Peter Sartorius

The same deal was made and accepted by Southampton at the end of its Council meeting Aug. 25. There had been no advance notice to citizens and no discussion allowed at the meeting. “For shame!” wrote a member of Jewish People for the Betterment of WHB to the Southampton Press.

It’s blackmail, pure and simple, religion at its worst, trampling on the rights of citizens who do not want to live in a religious enclave.

Courts, Elected Officials, Media, Libraries Fail Citizens

It is also the courts at their irrational, politicized worst, no decision on eruvim ever mentioning the existence of the web. Instead, the decisions cite the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman as the rationale for allowing eruvim. That opinion emphasized the lack of visibility of eruvim to casual passersby.

Also hitting a new low are local government officials. They have done a poor job of explaining eruvim and of guiding citizens through the fog of billions of words in legal filings. A particularly poor job has been done by the WHB government headed by Mayor Maria Moore. The WHB website has billions of words of legal mumbo-jumbo with no attempt to make sense of it. Many important documents are not included.

Verizon and Long Island Power have joined in the fray on the side of eruv proponents, both launching suits against the Hampton towns demanding that they accept the religious enclave. Both ignore the fact that about 95% of their customers do not want to have religious symbols permanently affixed to their telephone poles. The principle of separation of church and state, one of the basic building blocks of America, is ignored. Public and private industry officlals have ganged up against the public and the Constitution of the U.S.

Also derelict are major media including the New York Times which has not covered this mess since Feb. 4, 2013, even though one of its top public affairs reporters, Nicholas Confessore, is the son of Lynda Confessore, president of the Quogue library.

NYT does not cover the story because it would be too embarrassing for many of those involved. How is it to explain its avoidance of a story involving millions of dollars in legal fees and billions of words of legal arguing?

The SH Press is derelict because it editorialized on July 23, 2015 in favor of the eruv in WHB, saying it is not visible and therefore of no concern to anyone. It’s not only highly visible on the Hampton Synagogue website but the editorial itself made the eruv even more visible as did the page one story March 10. Editorials should be reasonable if nothing else. Completely ignoring the long, costly dispute is patch.com, the local news service. It focuses on incidents calling for police action and the weather.

Children who can read are aware of the behavior of the adults in the Hamptons.

Dan's PapersWe think the SH Press is influenced by real estate interests since eruvim in the Hamptons will be a major selling point. Mr. Sneiv, a columnist in Dan’s Papers, has predicted “zooming” prices if eruvim get established.

An 800-word piece by Sneiv on Sept. 21, 2015 was a plea to Pope Francis to step into the dispute and talk the EEEA out of its quest for eruvim lest protests turn violent.

Mr. Sneiv said he wrote “months ago” to the Vatican asking for intervention by the Pope who could “bring peace before this escalates into the throwing of rocks or worse.”

WHB “already has a healthy mix of religious options including a Synagogue and Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches,” he said.

Residents have been fighting an eruv since 2008 because they feel that it “could eventually change the entire look and feel of the community,” he added. There are usually about 1,800 homes for sale in the East End.

There supposedly is an eruv in WHB but neither the EEEA nor the Synagogue will say where any of the markers are. An exhaustive search of telephone poles in WHB by the SH Press failed to find a single lechi.

Under Jewish law, if even one lechi is missing or broken in some way, the entire eruv is invalid. It seems the EEEA is afraid that residents of WHB, able to see the lechis, will take some of them down and invalidate it.

Libraries Skip Issue

Alexandra SussmanAlexandra Susman

Libraries in Westhampton, Southampton and Quogue are AWOL on this issue because none of them has even the suggestion of an exhibit or filing of any sort on the subject even though this battle has been waged since 2008.

They are hotbeds of politics and anti-intellectualism when they should be in hot pursuit of facts and truth. Public discussion and debate would be the way to arrive at that but the libraries want no part of it.

Eruvim are unconstitutional as has been shown by extensive analyses by two distinguished law professors—Alexandra Susman of UCLA and Marci Hamilton of Yeshiva University.

The EEEA is a frightening monster against which the normal weapons of reason and fairness have no effect. Virtually all local residents oppose any religious symbols on their telephone poles but they stand by helplessly as their institutions get flattened by the EEEA monster.

Courts, Media, Libraries, Utilities, Schools, Squashed

This includes the courts, which refuse to invoke the weapon of the web against EEEA. Court decisions buy into the claim that eruvim markers are “invisible” and therefore of no concern to the public. No decision has ever mentioned that eruvim are shown and explained in detail on Synagogue and Google websites.

Abusive behavior by lawyers was captured on videotape behavior by lawyers at the Sept. 3, 2015 meeting of the WHB board. Outside counsel Brian Sokoloff talked from 17 minutes to 1:11 without ever mentioning that eruvim have been “outed” by the web. Instead, court decisions attesting to the “unobtrusiveness” and invisibility of eruvim were quoted.

After listening to Sokoloff for about 55 minutes, we took the mike and slammed the courts for not mentioning how visible eruvim are. We slammed Southampton for agreeing on Aug. 25 to allow EEEA to place eruv markers on utility poles in return for not being liable for millions in legal claims and penalties. That was “extortion” and “blackmail,” we said.