Freedom Within Bounds: Inside LA`s Eruv Communities

Freedom Within Bounds: Inside L.A.’s Eruv Communities
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Janine Rayford | February 15, 2011
Contributor
The two long strings of fishing wire that zigzag
across the 2700 block of Severance Street near the
University of Southern California are imperceptible.
About 15 feet high, the wires run along lamp posts in
the middle of the block and disappear behind certain
properties. It takes a keen eye to notice the
translucent strings and, despite the able vision of
young students who walk the block daily, few notice.
For Rabbi Dov Wagner, director of Jewish Student
Life at the university, those clear plastic lines are a
vital part of his life and the lives of practicing
Orthodox Jewish students at USC. The lines form a symbolic religious boundary known as an
eruv, within which many Orthodox Jews are free to gather and carry things on Saturday, the
Jewish Sabbath.
“The premise of the eruv is one of the instructions that the Torah, the Bible, gives about
Shabbat, not to carry in a public domain. That’s considered one of the acts of labor that we don’t
do on Shabbat,” said Wagner outside the Chabad Jewish Center on Severance Street.
From dusk on Friday until starlight on Saturday night, practicing Orthodox Jews recognize the
Sabbath and follow a specific set of rules detailing their actions during the day of rest. Orthodox
Jews do not work or drive on the Sabbath, but possibly the most restrictive rule is that they
cannot carry things from one domain to the other. This is where the eruv comes in.
“Essentially what the eruv does is creates almost a virtual barrier, a legal barrier, so that the
space within it is then considered one space and people will be able to carry within it without
breaking the law,” said Wagner, pointing up to the wire connected to a pole in front of the
Chabad Center.
In 2007 Wagner moved with his wife and first child out of the Center to a home across the
street.
1 “We actually delayed moving across for a couple of months until
our baby at the time could walk, when we next had a child a year
later we had to build an eruv to be able to bring the baby across
the street," he said.
The restriction of carrying things in a public domain on the
Sabbath includes everything from children to keys. Wagner said
small children are the main reason many Jews, predominantly
women, are homebound on the Sabbath, unable to attend
services and socialize, if an eruv is not present. Devices like
strollers and wheel chairs are also prohibited outside an eruv.
Wagner’s eruv uses wire to connect the walls behind the houses
on both sides of the street to create a figurative enclosed space.
Though apartments and fraternity houses with non-Jewish
inhabitants are included within the eruv’s boundaries, Wagner
said the space inside an eruv constitutes as one domain. “This is
exactly what the LA eruv is, only they’re enclosing a space with
several million people inside.”
A Line Of Freedom
The Los Angeles Community Eruv, erected in 2002, is enclosed by the 405 freeway on the west,
the 101 freeway on the north and east and the 10 freeway on the south. Wagner’s home, south of
the 10 freeway, was outside of those boundaries, though people from the LA Eruv helped him
construct his own miniature version.
The LA Eruv is one of the largest in the nation and encloses most of the Los Angeles metro area.
“In building an eruv you want to include the population that needs the eruv,” said Rabbi
Avrohom Union, head of the Rabbinical Council of California. The Council, the largest body of
Orthodox Rabbis in the west, oversees numerous aspects of the Jewish community, including
kosher food supervision and arbitration.
“More have come to feel that it is an important enhancement of the participatory element of
Jewish life, especially for women and children,” Union said.
On any given Saturday, the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles is filled with
Orthodox families walking to and from synagogues. Following services these families socialize
and carry food to and from each other’s homes. Union said this is all due to the freedom allowed
within the LA Eruv.
LAeruv.com is a website dedicated to the boundary, where people can check to make sure the
wires are up and running before Sabbath begins.
2 “One of the complicated aspects of the eruv is you have to check it every Friday and make sure
it’s all good,” Wagner said. Checking the eruv is a simple task for his one block enclosure, but a
much greater undertaking for those inspecting the perimeter of the 80 square mile LA Eruv.
“An eruv is an enterprise as well,” said Union, “There’s a lot of money involved in it because
there is a lot of labor-intensive work to keep it running the way it should.” According to the LA
Eruv website, that ‘work’ includes rabbis boarding helicopters with maps and binoculars, flying
above the city and peering down to inspect the tiny wires that make up the vast boundary.
By Friday, the website alerts the community displaying whether or not the eruv is up and the
boundary secured. In terms of the price of such constant observance and upkeep, Union said:
“Jews are geniuses at learning how to collect money for charities.”
The LA Eruv is privately sponsored by members of the Orthodox Jewish community on a
voluntary basis.
Neither Wagner nor the LA Eruv commissioners met much opposition from the non-Jewish
community when constructing the eruvs. “Who’s going to notice a piece of fishing wire?” asked
Wagner. “It’s not like it’s in anybody’s way or anything.”
An Eruv In Dispute
Certain non-Jewish community members near The Pacific Jewish Center in Venice Beach felt
differently. Rabbi Eliyahu Fink of the Pacific Jewish Center is currently in the midst of a fiveyear legal battle over the construction of an eruv in the Venice Beach area.
“We had met all the approvals for the Coastal Commission,” said Fink, “and just as soon as they
were about to issue our permit, they were sued.” An activist group of three people sued the
commission, citing that the wires of Pacific Jewish Center’s eruv could pose harm to coastal
birds. Per the lawsuit, the synagogue would need an environmental impact study, an expensive
requirement, in order to erect their eruv.
“When you do something in the city you don’t need to get a permit from the coastal commission,
you get a permit from Los Angeles,” said Fink, “Here we need both.”
The LA Eruv cannot include the Venice area due to what Union calls a “halachic issue,” referring
to the term for Jewish law.
“The 405 is a major deal breaker,” said Union of the freeway that runs between the two areas, “it
creates the problem of a public thoroughfare.” According to the rabbi, the Torah states that
eruvs can not encompass freeways, thus the current borders of the LA Eruv.
Fink plans on employing a new approach to gain support from non-Jews for the Venice Beach
eruv. “It will help their homes’ value go up,” said Fink. He said that with an eruv, more
Orthodox Jews will move to the area. “They displace people who are perhaps less desirable
neighbors,” he said, adding that Orthodox Jewish communities have been resilient and stable
during the recent economic crisis.
3 Fink said that the lack of an eruv in his community inhibits the growth of his synagogue as well
as the Jewish population in the area. “There are people who say ‘why inconvenience myself?”
Some families in the area have done like Wagner at USC and created their own small eruvs,
freeing them to transport things from their homes on Saturdays.
For Fink, who grew up in Buffalo, New York, he said life devoid of an eruv was difficult at times.
“It’s definitely a challenge, but it’s not something that’s insurmountable.”
Fink said his synagogue will persist in its struggle to create a boundary like those enjoyed by his
inner-city brethren.
URL: http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/02/freedom-­‐within-­‐bounds-­‐inside-­‐la-­‐s-­‐eruv-­‐
communities
4 Making Life Out of Ruin in Ramle: The Work of Sculptor Nihad Dabeet
by Janine Rayford, USC graduate journalism student
“This is the project of my life,” says sculptor Nihad Dabeet, 43, as he gives a tour of his unfinished home in Ramle, Israel. Built over 400 years ago, the house was
in ruins until its newest tenant devoted himself to its renovation. Mr. Dabeet says he and his wife continue to excavate and build upon the land, without permission
from the government.
Petite and jovial, Mr. Dabeet is an internationally known artist and sculptor who usually works with iron wire. From his dingy jeans and sweatshirt, it is hard to
imagine a man whose art can cost thousands of dollars and is displayed and purchased throughout the world, including a
recent exhibition in Atlanta, Georgia.
Now Mr. Dabeet’s main masterpiece is his home. Renting from an Arab couple who have owned the property before the
State of Israel declared independence in 1948, the Ramle native and his wife have excavated rooms buried under more
than 10 feet of sand and rubble.
With an art education from Bulgaria, Mr. Dabeet says that “as a sculptor you understand materials.” This understanding is
allowing the Arab citizen of Israel to reconstruct a home out of ruin. So far, Mr. Dabeet has only refurbished a small
percentage of the original structure.
What was once rubble has become a modern home with an aged façade. There are flat-screen televisions and jetted hot
tubs, with Mr. Dabeet’s sculptures of women and olive trees featured throughout. The new mortar ends towards the back
of the house.
Unlike in Jerusalem and Nazareth, the Israeli government and local Ramle municipality have not invested in the
architectural preservation of Ramle. It is up to individual residents and shop owners to restore and maintain the centuriesold structures of the biblical city, often without support from the current government.
“They want to clear the old part and to build something new,” says Buthaina Dabit, a Ramle native who is giving a tour of
the local ruins. Ms. Dabit points out the remnants of a building from the Ottoman period, which has been partially cleared for a parking lot near local shops.
Today, many buildings in Ramle are dilapidated and unlivable. “It’s Arab culture, so it has to be erased,” says Mr. Dabeet, speculating on why he thinks the city
abstains from preservation. Families move on as stones crumble from their properties’ arches and ceilings, burying architecture and artifacts in piles of beige
rubble. Stray cats abound amongst relics and materials that could belong in the Smithsonian.
Past the bathroom and through an open quad, the sculptor shows one unfinished room at the back of the house, where the ceiling continues to deteriorate.
“If I am not here to repair this every few years, it will just fall in,” he says.
All of this work will be for not if the city decides to bulldoze the property due to the illegal expansion of the structure. It is difficult for Arab citizens to receive permits
to build or expand on their land. If they build without permits, their structures are subject to demolition by the municipality.
Despite lacking a building permit, “he insists to pay the taxes,” said Ms. Dabit. The artist hopes that paying taxes regularly may spare his home from demolition.
One of Mr. Dabeet’s projects is to resurface an entire room using tiles gathered from demolished Arab homes in the area. The artist has no trouble finding these
tiles, considering the large number of home demolitions that have occurred in the Arab communities of Ramle and neighboring Lod. In an open-air quad on the
property, festive-looking ceramic squares, some broken, stand in piles along the stone wall.
Dabeet’s house sits in the Christian quarter of Ramle, in the shadow of the massive Terra Santa Franciscan monastery and a few blocks down the street from an
800-year-old Arab-Christian restaurant.
Mr. Dabeet is a self-proclaimed atheist. “I never believed in the b—- s—-,” says the artist, standing next to a small plastic Christmas tree atop his refrigerator. His
wife is a Muslim Bedouin from Libya and the mother of his two young daughters. The Dabeets are the only Muslim family in the area.
When Mr. Dabeet’s wife comes home with their girls, he scoops up his eldest daughter Samira Landa. Despite the uncertain future, the father is proud of the home
that he is creating for his family, as well as the benefit it brings to the community.
“I was the right person in the right time to come to this place.”
All photos by Bethany Firnharber.
URL: http://blog.onbeing.org/post/5008369422/making-­‐life-­‐out-­‐of-­‐ruin-­‐in-­‐ramle-­‐the-­‐work-­‐of-­‐sculptor R6.20 inc! VA
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INmATES: Five young men prepare for their traditional circumcision ritual. The Western Cape has plans to renovate and upgrade Cape Town initiation facilities by next year.
Picture: KHAYA NGWENYA City ens res circumcision schools are safe
Janine Rayford
VI
area in year .
Despjte this success. Nok
waza 'aid; "We are not going to
wait for calamity to strlke."
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plan to renovate nd pgrade
city initiation facilities by next
1E!ar, tarting with school in
Khayelitsha and Gugulethu .
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has recently trained :U health
practitioners, all who have
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Nokwaza and other offi­
cials are now to advise Easter n
Cape omcials on best pra ­
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Eastern
ape
health
spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said;
" It i n t lh entire province.
11 of the pop Ita
tes in this "I ual
and 80 percen t of the time
there are no problems."
He said most of the deaths
were in remote areas of East­
ern and Western Pondo]and
and that the issue was
"extremely complicated";
• Un upervised ir umci­
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young Xhosa boys in rem t
areas;
• Elders are not overseeing
the process and tradit onal stan­
dards are not being followed;
Uncertified practitioners
and boys as young as 14 have
been caught r unning for·profit
illegal In lti tion schools;
•
auses of deaths have
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But many times the bo
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out illegal school and tak
those with infected ge.nitali
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Co-operative Gov rnan
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ter lcelo hiceka' CO .
ing the formal regulation of 1
tiation schools, due to the Cl
in the Eastern Cape. saying'
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