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VISITING OUR
SYNAGOGUE ON SHABBAT Kosher Market Place 2442 Broadway (West 90 & 91st Street) 212.580.6378 Eretz 692 Columbus Ave 212.665.0953
After months of study and
discussion, it appears that the Manhattan erub which was established almost
fifty years ago can no longer be maintained as a proper erub. The problem is
not halakhic but rather structural. Many changes have taken place over the last
decade or two which make it extremely difficult to maintain the kashruth of the
erub. The necessary improvements to bring the eruv up to the standards that
Rabbi Menachem Kasher, of blessed memory, established would be very expensive
to make and, in any event, the nature of traffic and construction in Manhattan
make it virtually impossible to assure the kashruth of the erub on any given
Shabbat.
A group of rabbis met on
Wednesday, June 29 and made the painful decision to stop checking the Manhattan
erub and cease to maintain it. At the same time, they agreed to support the
Mid-Manhattan erub which essentially covers all of Manhattan from the 50's up
to 111th Street on the East Side, and up to 126th Street in parts of the West
Side. The boundaries of the erub can be found at
http://www.5as.org/content/default.asp?artid=88.
The rabbis further agreed
to encourage and fund the extension of the Manhattan erub southward as far as
it can be extended. At present, there are already plans developing to extend
the erub into the 20's on the East Side. We would like to encompass as much of
Manhattan below 126th Street as we possibly can in order to include as many
Jewish communities as possible.
In the meantime, the
current erub operates only within a limited area, and carrying outside of that
area on Shabbat is no longer protected.
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