Atheists Want Eruv Pulled From Miami Beach Streets
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A national atheist group is demanding that an eruv be taken down in Miami Beach.
The eruv around the Pinetree Park area was erected two months ago, despite the fact that the entire island of Miami Beach is surrounded by an eruv, after the city installed a kayak ramp rendering part of the main eruv invalid, the Miami New Times reported at the time.
Residents of Miami Beach complained that the new eruv, approved by the city of Miami Beach, ruined the landscape and violated the separation of church and state.
An eruv, a religious enclosure for use on the Sabbath usually marked by nearly invisible wires erected at the height of electricity wires, allows observant Jews to carry items and push strollers on Shabbat. The Miami Beach eruv was erected in 1985, much of it made up of the island’s seawall.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation late last week wrote a letter to the city demanding that the Pinetree Park eruv be dismantled, as well as all other public eruvs in Miami Beach, the Miami New Times reported.
“The religious significance of eruvin is unambiguous and indisputable,” foundation staff attorney Andrew Seidel wrote. “They are objects which are significant only to some Jews as a means to obey religious laws that have no bearing on non-adherents. They have no meaning except as a visual, public communication of a purely religious concept for religious believers of a single faith. The city cannot allow such permanent religious displays to be erected on public land.”
The eruv “imposes Orthodox Judaism on members of the public by surrounding their community with the physical indicia of a religion that they do not practice,” the letter said.
“The Miami Beach eruv extends Orthodox Jewish community property rights to the government-owned land and land owned by other private citizens, at least according to their faith. The government has no business allowing its property to be designated as private property at the behest of a few religious individuals,” according to the letter.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
