Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

July 28, 2017

Why a New Jersey Town Was Wrong to Prevent Its Jewish Residents from Constructing an Eruv

Bigotry, not zoning laws, triumph in Mahwah.

In the northern New Jersey town of Mahwah, an expanding Orthodox community has attempted to set up an eruv, a sort of legal fiction that allows for carrying out of doors on Shabbat. The town’s government recently ruled that the eruv—which consists of small pieces of white PVC piping attached to utility poles—violated local zoning laws. On Wednesday some parts of the eruv were vandalized. The editors of NorthJersey.com take issue with Mahwah’s decision:

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