Friday, March 28, 2008

Eruvin in the News: NW London 3

Eruv ‘Friends’ Go On Glossy PR Offensive

By Simon Rocker

Supporters of the North-West London eruv have mounted an expensive public-relations exercise in a bid to demonstrate to local strictly Orthodox residents that it is usable.

Thousands of copies of an lavishly produced 160-page booklet have been delivered to Jewish homes in Hendon and Golders Green, containing endorsements for the Sabbath boundary from across the Orthodox rabbinic world.

Although the North-West London eruv became operational five years ago, under the supervision of the London Beth Din, it has been consistently opposed by the rabbinate of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, which questions its validity under Jewish law. Read on...

Friday, March 07, 2008

Eruvin in the News: Denver, Co

"Invisible" Line Defines Neighbors

By Susan Greene

A piece of string is the binding thread in a tapestry of pious Jews moving east of the Denver Tech Center.

It's called an eruv — a symbolic wall that allows exceptions to strict rabbinical laws forbidding work, including lifting babies and carrying keys, outside the home on Sabbath.

Eruvs stretch the boundaries of that private space to include whole neighborhoods. This one in Greenwood Village is threaded from streetlamps to telephone poles, zig- zagging through housing tracts and chain-restaurant parking lots. Read on ...

The Bais Ephraim Revisited

  As I have written on numerous occasions the argument that the Bais Ephraim maintains that pirtzos esser [breaches of ten amos wide] is ...