If you’ve ever walked around Flatbush, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights, you probably haven’t noticed the small, thin extra wires suspended between the telephone poles that mark the spiritual perimeters for Orthodox Jews living within their boundaries.

Known as an eruv (ay-roov), each wire creates an area of spiritually private space from Friday night to sundown on Saturday, the period known as Shabbat.

The Torah prohibits any kind of work during the Shabbas — the Jewish day of rest — including the act of “carrying” anything from private to public domains and vice versa. Under this rule, actions like pushing a stroller, operating a wheelchair, carrying a child or bringing a dish to a neighbor’s home are all technically not allowed.

Eruvs have existed since ancient times and today can be found around the world. Originally, in a time before telephone poles, eruvs consisted not of wire but of walls.

Eruv Brooklyn
A map of Borough Park’s eruv

Every week before the Shabbas begins, a rabbi must check the eruv enclosure — ensuring that it is complete and unbroken. If a portion of the eruv has fallen or split, its power is gone.

Because of the wire’s vulnerability, many congregations offer eruv-specific call numbers or social media accounts to provide weekly updates on the area eruv’s status.

According to one fastidiously compiled map, Brooklyn contains at least 10 separate eruvs, respectively located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Flatbush, Borough Park, Marine Park, Manhattan Beach, Crown Heights and Midwood, with considerable overlap into other nabes. According to the map, the Flatbush eruv is by far the largest.

Despite eruvs’ peaceful, unobtrusive nature, some people take issue with their existence in the borough.

“In the communities of Brooklyn…the public nature of relying on the eruv has led to acrimonious disputes and fierce battles that incorporate both halakhic [Jewish religious laws] and social considerations rooted in the affiliations of the antagonists,” wrote Adam Mintz, founding rabbi of Manhattan’s Kehilat Rayim Ahuvim.

Despite the potential controversy of a publicly installed religious boundary, most Brooklynites would seem to care little about the eruv, likely because many don’t realize it exists.

But what do you think of Brooklyn’s eruvs? Have you noticed one in your neighborhood?

eruv brooklyn
Williamsburg’s eruv takes up a sprawling hunk of the neighborhood

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