Eruv Vandalism Investigated as a Hate Crime
Repeated vandalism to a newly built eruv in the neighborhood is being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force, the NYPD said Wednesday • Full Story
DNAInfo.com/By Rachel Holliday Smith
Repeated vandalism to a newly built eruv in the neighborhood is being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force, the NYPD said Wednesday.
The eruv, a religious enclosure made of string hung between light poles and walls, was cut multiple times in Crown Heights following an uproar over the symbolic boundary between the Lubavitch Jewish community — which traditionally does not use eruvs — and a Modern Orthodox synagogue who pushed to build the structure.
Hate crime investigators took over the case this week from detectives at the 77th Precinct, sources said.
Following its official opening in mid-June by Congregation Kol Israel, the Modern Orthodox synagogue located at 603 St. Johns Pl., vandals destroyed the eruv’s lines, which symbolizes the area where observant Jews may carry or move items outside the home on the Sabbath.
The destruction of the spiritual border took place in multiple locations on July 8 and 14 inside the borders of the new Greater Crown Heights Eruv, stretching from Pacific Street to Clarkson Avenue from north to south and from Prospect Park and Washington Avenue to Buffalo Avenue from west to east.
As of Wednesday, no suspects have been identified in the case, police said.
The pushback against the ritual enclosure included strongly worded letters from the Beis Din of Crown Heights condemning the eruv, flyers posted in the neighborhood forbidding its use and harassment of Lubavitchers who supported its construction, those familiar with the project said.
Eruvs have been built elsewhere in the city, country and around the world; with them, controversy often follows.
But in the Modern Orthodox tradition, eruvs have become “standard,” said a trustee at Kol Israel, Naftali Hanau.
“Modern Orthodox people who are growing up today and now starting families, nearly all of them grew up in communities with eruvs,” he said. “They’re all over the place. It’s not controversial. Young people are not going to move to a community without one.”
In the absence of an eruv, observant Jews are forbidden from picking up or moving anything outside of their homes on Saturdays, including strollers — a challenge for mothers of young children who are “stuck in the home” on the Sabbath until their kids can walk to synagogue, Hanau said.
But people on both sides of the debate suspect the culprits are those who feel strongly that the eruv shouldn’t exist in the neighborhood.
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This is a disgrace! This eiruv is causing so much machlokes!
Do u really think this eiruv was built by kol Israel??? Y would they force this eiruv on lubavitch crown heights!? There are young trouble makers who did this in kol Israels name! Ooh to them!!
Could there be a once-and-for-all a clear definition of when charges of a hate crime are leveled and when not.
When a shvartze hits a Jew is that a hate crime? for some reason they never get charged with it.
Does the Rebbe Shlita want chabad people to vandalize someone else’s eruv.