The Supreme Court, Suffolk County, has ruled that a sign ordinance adopted by the Long Island town of Southampton did not apply to wooden or plastic strips known as lechis that are attached to telephone or utility poles used to create an eruv, or ceremonial demarcation of an area, for members of the area’s Orthodox Jewish community. The court’s ruling, in East End Eruv Association v. Town of Southampton,1 appears to be the first in New York to interpret a municipal land use ordinance2 in a case involving an eruv.3

Background

An eruv, under Jewish law, is a virtually invisible unbroken demarcation or delineation of an area that may be established by the attachment of wooden or plastic strips, called lechis, to telephone or utility poles. Among other things, an eruv must be built on land owned by the public, it may not have a ceiling, it must be at least 40 inches high, and it must be accessible to the public 24 hours a day. An eruv allows an observant Jewish person on the Sabbath or Yom Kippur to carry or push objects from his or her residence (i.e., private property) onto public property and from public property back to his or her residence, activities a person would be prohibited from otherwise doing, by creating the fiction of a communal “private” domain. Although its use is specifically for the Sabbath and Yom Kippur, an eruv is maintained throughout the year by observant Jews.4

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