Members of the Board of Congregation B’nai Jacob in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, an Orthodox synagogue led by Rabbi Shimon Hecht, sent the following letter to COLlive.com on Friday:
It has come to our attention that the Brownstone Brooklyn Eruv has been damaged, in an act of purposeful vandalism, twice in the last two weeks.
Over twenty years ago members of our community invested their efforts, time and money to build Park Slope Eruv to serve the growing needs of the local Jewish community. They have continued to dedicate themselves tirelessly to its maintenance, and Baruch Hashem the Eruv is recognized as a respected communal structure.
Over time it has extended – with rabbinic oversight – to cover a large area of Brownstone Brooklyn. Thousands of Jews rely on this Eruv every Shabbat to carry.
It is no secret that the Greater Crown Heights Eruv has been the subject of much controversy over recent months. We recognize that there are voices in the Chabad community that protest the Eruv encircling Crown Heights and that the leading Rabbis have expressed their disagreement with it.
Our synagogue has had a long standing positive relationship with Chabad and have the utmost respect for the Crown Heights Chabad community. It is not our place to weigh in on internal disputes of another community, and we hope that the parties can reach a peaceful reconciliation.
At the same time, as good neighbors, we expect our neighboring community to respect ours and not infringe on our community institutions and decisions. We don’t want the unrest of a neighboring community to spill over into ours.
Whether they intended to or not, by breaking the Eruv, the vandals not only invalidated the Crown Heights Eruv, they disqualified the broader Eruv as well – including the Eruv that covers Park Slope. This hurt our community, and could have led to a mass Chilul Shabbat.
So we ask of you: Please don’t break our Park Slope Eruv that has taken many years to build. Please don’t destroy our communal peace in an attempt to control yours. Please don’t cause Chilul Shabbat in our community in your quest to avoid it in yours. Please don’t disrespect our values in your efforts to uphold yours.
Please don’t touch our Eruv!
Thank you for your consideration.
Yes, we will break up your outsider Irvuv. So long as we wont divulge confidentialy of our members, we will ensure our childern are sheltered from any outside impurity that threatens the chassidisher chinuch of our young and impressionable children. Like you, we never asked for anybody’s religeous aproval for what we do. We will stand up for the perservation of the ruchnius in Our neighborhood. We intend to keep it wired within the framwork layed down by our rebbeyim. The offense of an eruv provoked by outsiders is only one of our multiple targets. Schools, your next: If its… Read more »
If you live in CH you are in the Rebbe’s jurisdiction. It is a choice you make which requires you to abide by the Rebbe’s directives, especially in public. This is not a matter of personal egos, preferences or political demagoguery. So don’t play any one of those cards. If you call yourself Chabad this whole situation should be pretty black and white.
Put up the eruv in your own areas but don’t come to Crown Heights and try to put up an eruv here.
To state that the vandals acted under the direction or with the acquiesce of the CHBD is an allegation, which is both untrue and scandalous and should be withdrawn.
The statement of Rabbi Shimon Hecht is both ill advised and inappropriate as a Lubavitcher Rov he should not make any statement in public which undermines the authority of his colleagues on the CHBD.
The eiruv is not a kosher one and it’s not a chumra not to use it!
The rav who first said it’s ok, said he takes back his words, it’s not like eating only lubavitch schita it’s actually chilul shabbos!
The vandalizers should stop vandalizing and the eruv people should stop antagonizing CH with an eruv it doesn’t wants
Using it is mechalel shabbos….the only rabbis that permit it are those who don’t know even 5% of the halichos of eruv.
Every single rav that KNOWS and is WELL VERSED in the halachos will tell u it is not possible to make a kosher eruv in CH.
So stop calling it a ‘chumra’, or fooling yourself that your keeping a ‘mitzva’ by using this eruv.
A fool can only fool other fools.
The ignorance in some of these comments is appalling
For all those who consider themselves pro the CH eruv: You are waging a war against the Rebbe, against the Rabonim of the community, and therefore against the Torah. And as the Rebbe expressed himself in connection to those who waged war against the Rabonim of the community – “Rachmanus on him”. If the Rebbe himself said that although he has enough things to do, he is stopping everything in order to strengthen the Rabonim of the community, how much more so for every person who calls himself the Rebbe’s Chosid, to do all he can to stop anyone who… Read more »
You contradict yourself.
First you say that you are a different area and community, and we had no right to interfere with your eruv.
But then you say when an area has an eruv even if it’s the minority, then everyone has to pay for it… Meaning we are the same community and you eruv also covers our area…
If it does, then you had no right to put it up against the Rebbe and the Rabonim of our area. If it doesn’t, don’t go threatening to sue for not paying for you services!!!
1 – Park slope’s eruv is a different story that unfortunately got mixed up with the current eruv situation. They’ve got nothing to do with putting up this new eruv. 2- Whether the CH eruv was kosher or not, IT WAS DONE AGAINST THE BEIS DIN OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD and therefore should not be used and should be taken down. 3 – “pro-eruv” people keep flashing their ahavas yisroel card, but then when a fellow jew cuts down the eruv, they threaten and swear to get him in jail… true Ahavas Yisroel showing… Besides for the fact that if they… Read more »
There are some people that need a walker or a cane to go to shul on Shabbos, and if an eruv is not up they cant go to shul,and they live in Crown heights so who gave you the right to take down the eruv so people were not able to go to shul, there might be a lot of chabad people that live in Crown Heights but there are a lot of other type of Jews that live here to, so please don’t speak for all the jews that live in Crown Heights, If you don’t want the eruv… Read more »
The real embarrassment is that not enough people stood up to defend our right to no eruv in CH. Too many were silent and now it’s damage-control, which is harder. CH was bullied!
Nobody needs our permission to use our wall in their eruv. It exists, that’s just a fact. It’s a fact for us, therefore it’s a fact for everyone else, and they can rely on that fact.
This whole situation is just making me so sad. People going against the rebbe and rabbonim, people bashing each other out….it’s all so pathetic! Seriously, it’s time to grow up!
But the Park Slope eruv was DOWN. So your vandals did not achieve their goal, but they did disturb the oneg shabbos of many Jews who had no quarrel with them, and caused massive chiilul shabbos among the thousands of Jews who previously had been carrying beheter, and now carried be’issur. Truly the gemara applied to eruv vandals the passuk חכמים המה להרע ולהיטיב לא ידעו.
If you allow the boundary of your eruv to be one of the 4 walls of an eruv against the rebbe and rabbanim you should not be surprised you get pulled into the fight over it.
If you have any quarrel it’s with Kol Israel, not with us. We did nothing to you. Why did you come into our community and destroy our eruv?
Going against the rebbe and the bes din is not the way to bring moshiach. The park slope eruv should not be supporting the crown hts eruv. It’s not a matter of just don’t use it. It’s not just a chumrah. It’s a matter of obeying the rebbe and following halacha
If you agree with the Rabbonim, there is no eruv, why cut the string?
If you disagree with the Rabbonim, why cut the string?
May G-D Almighty have mercy
You are not getting it. The Park Slope eruv is totally different from the Greater Crown Heights eruv. However, the criminals vandalized the Park Slope eruv. The Park Slope Eruv did not come into the Crown Heights community.
That being said, if you don’t like the Crown Heights eruv, just don’t use it. Be a good chossid of the Rebbe and be machmir. This eruv doesn’t effect you. Let the Modern Orthodox people of Crown Heights use their eruv is peace, so that we can all bring Moshiach together.
You destroyed the peace in our community, but you ask us to support your efforts to cause mass chillul shabbos in ours? We didnt touch “your” eruv in park slope. We ensured there wouldn’t be one in our community! You speak of dissenting voices as if our Rebbe and the Alter Rebbe are rabble rousers. No Shimon Hecht. You have become like the blind sheep you lead. You may be in Park Slope, but you are falling down a very slippery Slope. Don’t attempt to drag us down with you. You want peace? Remove the eruv that infringes on shabbos… Read more »
Please keep your Eruv out of our neighborhood and u won’t have a problem
Our job as Lubavitchers is to bring Jews closer to Yiddishkit we currently are bordering some of the most sought after real estate with so many holy Jews and here we are alianating them by the thousands. I don’t believe for a second the Rebbe would allow a erev to make such trouble that we have become the zealots that are going into diffrent neighborhoods and destroying there property, there enjoying Shabbos and most importantly there view on Yiddishkit, Lubavitch and weather you like it or not the Rebbes name and everything thing he has done.
Said it simply and fairly. I couldn’t care less what the MO people do in Park Slope under Rabbi Shimon Hecht’s leadership. Once they move their standards into Chabad territory, it’s a whole different ball game.
The letter was sent by BOARD MEMBERS, not by Shimon Hecht. It seems he is keeping out of it.
I would like to know if eruv was up this shabbos
This is basically what he was trying to say but had no….. “Dear members of shchunas kan tzivah Hashem es habracha, Recently, there has been an unfortunate attempt by some to erect an Eruv in the Rebbe’s neighborhood, against the wishes of the Rebbe and the Rabbonim of the community. Naturally, this is unacceptable and should be stopped. However, unfortunately, while trying to take down the Eruv of Crown heights, some well-intentioned zealots managed to take down the Eruv of the surrounding areas as well. Please be careful in the future. Thank you, Rabbi Shimon Hecht” Now next time you… Read more »
This is nothing to do with which eiruv was damaged.
It is forbidden to destroy another person’s property.
I would never carry in either eiruv, I am very upset that a small group pushed an eiruv on the Crown Heights community against the will of its Rabbis and the vast majority of the people who live there.
BUT Vandalism is forbidden. The Rebbe said “There are no terror brigades in Lubavitch.” If you commit terror you are not a Lubavitcher Chasid.
If you are going to cut it, please cut it on the eastern border. Ty.
The Park Slope Eruv has been up for many years and never encroached on the Crown Heights community. The new Eruv that was built in Crown Heights has no relation to that Eruv nd was built by an entirely different group of people. It just happens to be that the NEW Eruv utilized the existing strings of the existing Eruv. By the vandals breaking the Crown Heights Eruv on the side that it relies on the existing Eruv, they also invalidated the Eruv on the other side of that string – the Park Slope Eruv. That Eruv had nothing to… Read more »
I was very distressed to see how many comments there are justifying the vandalism to the Eruv. Just like there’s no justification for anyone in Crown Heights to disobey the Psak Din of the Rabbonim of Crown Heights, there’s no justification to vandalize an Eruv used by people in communities whose Rabbonim (even if only some of them) permit using an Eruv. Rabbi Heller himself said that in Boro Park, there are Rabbonim who permit using an Eruv and Rabbonim who don’t. If the Eruv would have been vandalized in Crown Heights, then maybe it could be justfied, but it… Read more »
Specious argument. You have extended “your eruv” and made it “our eruv” against our will. Get rid of the extention
How about a wireless eiruv… will solve the vandalism problem….
#43, #44, #45, #46,
Get this straight — KOL ISRAEL DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR RABBONIM. They had every right to make an eruv, and they didn’t have to ask your rabbonim’s permission. But the vandals ARE under your rabbonim’s authority, so it’s their obligation to condemn them and root them out, or else they are responsible for the vandalism.
#1 “the real issue” Nobody needs permission to build an eruv next door to an existing one, and use its boundary as one of theirs. The Torah considers the boundary of an eruv as a wall, and if someone puts up three more such walls they have a reshus hayochid. Indeed if four people happened to put up walls that together enclose an area, the area inside is automatically a reshus hayochid, and the people inside can make an eruv chatzeros and carry without anyone’s permission. #4 Kevin For your information our eruv has been kosher with the greatest hiddurim… Read more »
The Park Slope eruv DOES NOT encircle Crown Heights. It was created for the Jews in the greater Brownstone Brooklyn area. If your logic for vandalism, Chillul Lubavitch, and being the cause of unsuspecting Chillul Shabbos is “don’t encroach our community,” then you really do not hold the Rebbe’s wishes to high esteem. In fact, you pretty much lack respect for humans and established order altogether. So live and let live. Stop destroying others’ lives because your lives are so miserable.
While there is a chabad chumra not to use eruv, chumras are not meant to be forced on to people and cutting the eruv is the worst.. Loi olaunu where we have reached
anything that causes so much arguing cant be a good thing especially since it is against the Rebbe and HALACHA
Does it make sense that we should not interfere when it’s our own community with our values? –
47
WHAT A BUNCH OF HIPPOCRITES YOU ALL ARE, THE REBBE’S STANDARDS?
AND WHAT ABOUT THE CROWN HEIGHTS WOMEN AND GIRLS WALKING AROUND WITH THEIR HAIR HALF UNCOVERED WITH SNOODS, SHORT SKIRTS, AND NO TIGHTS. THESE ARE THE ISSUES THAT OFFEND THE REBBE’S STANDARDS, NOT A HALACHICALLY ACCEPTABLE ERUV. GET YOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT!
I am shocked at such a discussion.
To vandalise, is absolutely against Torah and lacks the essence of respect, integrity, and Ahavat Yisrael, regardless of the circumstances, irrespective of different opinions on this matter.
Rather let’s look internally into ourselves and our own communities and focus on bettering ourselves in the way we treat others, in discipline, in respect, in Ahavat Yisrael!
Gotta love all the elitism being expressed here.
“Get out of our neighbourhood”
“Don’t mess with our Rebbe and community standards”
“Don’t start up with us”
“Don’t infringe on our values”
If Chabad decides to establish a presence in a heavily populated Jewish neighbourhood (whether religious or otherwise) and the local residents object with similar statements, would we accept their claims and back off?
I never heard the Rebbe speak bad about other Jews. How can people call themselves the Rebbe’s chasidim when they not only talk like this but even write it in public?
Rabbi Hecht, if you don’t want your eiruv to be in peril, why would you connect it to the crown heights eiruv which is very controversial? Keep your Shlichus out of the Rebbe’s Shchuna. They are not meant to mix. As long as it’s connected to the phoney CH eiruv, it should be considered a non-kosher eiruv.
As the rebbe said הענט איז פאר בני ברק while we want to be machmir and not use eruv we obviously have to keep basic halacha those come before chumras
This is so sad hashem yishmor while I wouldnt use eruv that is my choice to keep that beautiful chumra. To cut it is beyond comprehension
is going in Brooklyn. I thought that eruv had been in place or had been initiated at the request of rabbis for their respective shuls. That’s none of our business. What is our business is the question who, from those specified shuls and rabbis, first mixed in to Crown Heights and caused shameful reactions from CH that, therefore, we can use the eruv. The vandalism results in nothing good and is not the yiddisher chassidishe behavior. Park Slope and its environs do what your rabbi say is okay but don’t mix in to Crown Heights halachic issues. Wishing everyone a… Read more »
The chabad way is to stand up for what’s right. Don’t mess with our community and the rebbes standards
BECAUSE YOU DIDNT LISTEN TO THEM when they said no Eruv…. So why should they waste their breath again?!?!?!
Please curb your dog. And don’t complain if we clean up your poop. Thank you for your consideration
You don’t get to ask where the rabbonim are when they were blatantly ignored in a matter that undermines basic Halacha. What a chutzpah!!!!
Hypocrites asking about where the rabbonim are! That’s like saying “mommy, she doesn’t let me make a mess. Tell her to let me not listen to you! Wahhhhh!”
Nobody did it
It’s going to happen again again and again
It’s like the boat story with the Alter Rebbe
Or the wagon one
Nothing can make CH to have an eruv if it’s not the Rebbes ratzon
Are you also embarrassed of the Torah that it calls some animals treif? That’s negative!!! It’s a rabbi’s job to say the law and they did. It makes no sense to complain about negativity here. If they don’t consider the eruv valid, what difference does it make if some wire was broken? It’s non existent
do we spoil treif foods in the local supermarkets???
do we through rocks on Shabbos?
do we spit on non-tziuis women on kingston?
the same rebber teachers us ahavas yisroel at what ever cost???
gut shabbos
This eiruv is an existing Halachic practice and a part of Torah helping several communities for over 25 years.
I shudder to think what YOUR afterlife looks like…it’s well known that the heavenly beis din follows the rabbinical court down here. Don’t mess with my city’s rabbonim, you’re laying with fire!
The ultimate travesty here is that this shabbos, the Park Slope eruv is down because of vandalism. The Greater Crown Heights eruv is up, despite attempts at vandalism. I hope the leadership in Chabad will think about the consequences of their silence here. Is this the Chabad way? The Park Slope community has to suffer because of the criminal actions of hooligans.
The vandalizers should stop vandalizing and the eruv people should stop antagonizing CH with an eruv it doesn’t wants
They will have to answer God in this world and in the afterlife, and even in the afterafterlife
to be part of a community that is now known for its unrelenting and tireless and shameless hooliganism! A community I joined and loved is now being led by rabbonim who say negative things about those who go by another rav’s psak din, but who are completely silent about the hooliganism, low-life antics of some of our ‘finest’!!
Rabbi Hecht’s letter was quite diplomatic, but as a Shliach of our Rebbe, I don’t believe he was correct in cowering away from expressing a (the Rebbe’s) firm opinion on the Eruv. The letter may have read something like this: Dear members of shchunas kan tzivah Hashem es habracha, Recently, there has been an unfortunate attempt by some to erect an Eruv in the Rebbe’s neighborhood, against the wishes of the Rebbe and the Rabbonim of the community. Naturally, this is unacceptable and should be stopped. However, unfortunately, while trying to take down the Eruv of Crown heights, some well-intentioned… Read more »
The vandalizers should stop vandalizing and the eruv people should stop antagonizing CH with an eruv it doesn’t wants
There are many other eruvs around Brooklyn that people use and dont use based upon their rabbaim. Crown Heights is not a closed gated community that only one type of Jew lives in, just like Boro Park, Flatbush, Midwood or Marine Park. In these communities many eruvs exist and you follow your rav. So leave it alone.
That’s right! The fight was over when we put up the eruv despite the tremendous protests of every SINGLE Rov of the community, and against the Rebbe’s wishes.
Now if anyone does anything back, they’re the ones starting up!
It all started when you hit me back.
Its like putting your hand in someones car window and then say don’t touch me!
You gotta love the phony “Ahavas Yisroel” card they try to play. We need to love yidden but not necessarily the Rabanim they follow. With a little insight and thought the contradiction is blatant. True Ahavas Yisroel would be to only have an eruv that received the blessing of the community leaders.
that’s like me building a roof over my neighbors backyard and when he gets mad and tries removing it i say “we’ve had such a good relationship over the years, please don’t ruin it now…” Really??!! don’t ruin our relationship….MOVE YOUR ROOF AWAY FROM MY YARD!!!!!!
Whoever put the eruv up against the rebbe and rabbanim is starting up. Then they want to call police on jews! What shulchan aruch do you follow? Don’t expand your eruv to our neighborhood to avoid issues with your eruv.
The “eruv” will go down again
Travesty
Mockery
Outrage
Didn’t we forget that ahavas yisroel is most vital part of judiasm לא ניתנה התורה אלא לעשות שלום בעולם
There is no excuse in cutting the eruv. That’s something satmar does. We as chassidei chabad should know better
PLEASE DONT TOUCH OUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
If it’s ur eruv, it needs to b in your neighborhood…your rabinic officials cannot go against the rabbis of the neighborhood they are covering….shocking!
It’s no secret that park slope standards are not crown heights standards….so its extremely disrespectful to spill over your lower standards into our neighborhood, causing many to go against the communal psak.
So….keep ur eruv to yourself, and no one will try to destroy it
For those who want to keep the chumra of not using eruv you need to have eruv to keep that chumra. Chumra are meant to be taken on voluntarily as the alter rebbe teaches us. Not forced down other peoples throat.
While I wouldnt use this eruv. Cutting the eruv is inexcusable
The point is that vandals have vandalized the Park Slope eruv, which is separate from the Great Crown Heights eruv. These eruvim are separate eruvim, but share a border. In fact, vandalism occurred that damaged sections of the Park Slope eruv that are not on the shared border.
To say that the Greater Crown Heights eruv is an extension of the Park Slope Eruv is absurd. The Park Slope community had nothing to do with the building of the Greater Crown Heights eruv, they are just asking to be left alone and not to have their own eruv vandalized.
These people who call themselves Chasidim and support vandalism of any kind are ibbergegeben like cult followers.
If the eruv is left alone there will be no fights who ever took it down is starting up if you dont want to use it then don’t
Isn’t there a system in place to warn people when the eruv is down?
Whether it comes down add a result of crown heights terror or a stray dog or a snowstorm shouldn’t make a difference.
An eruv that can cause
chilul shabbos is never usable.
PLEASE DONT TOUCH OUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
If it’s ur eruv, it needs to b in your neighborhood…your rabinic officials cannot go against the rabbis of the neighborhood they are covering….shocking!
It’s no secret that park slope standards are not crown heights standards….so its extremely disrespectful to spill over your lower standards into our neighborhood, causing many to go against the communal psak.
So….keep ur eruv to yourself, and no one will try to destroy it
Please catch the hooligans
As a lubavichers, I am so embarrassed because we vandenalized the other peoples eiruv. Oy, what are the people going to say about us – chilul Lubavich, this does not look good in the eyes of other types of yidden. Therefore, please please anybody who reads this please know that we are not all like that, we are actually very normal people, so don’t think we are old fashioned because some extremist hooligan decided to vandenalize your eiruv. Oy I am push it hurrying my head in busha, I don’t even know what I am going to say, mamesh a… Read more »
Please keep your Eruv out of our neighborhood and u won’t have a problem
Lets learn more… so we understand it better
Its a mitzva
Whats about condemnation of the crown heights eruv..??? most community members support as the true wishes of the rebbe
U need permission of the CH rabbonim b4 extending your eruv into their area…..
If it’s for your community than theveruv should b….in your community.
Ty, and plz respect our neighborhood by not infringing on our values.
Wow…how ppl see things only on their side!!
Its embarrassing how silent they are… do they condon this behavior…. seriously!!!! Hashem yerachem
my landlord says the same thing – please don’t touch the new locks
Lets get the video footage so the perpetrators would be caught and prosecuted
If you don’t want to use it, no one will force you to. But to intentionally damage the eruv is wrong in so many ways. Please stop embarrassing the neighborhood with vandalism!
“It is no secret that the Greater Crown Heights Eruv has been the subject of much controversy over recent months. We recognize that there are voices in the Chabad community that protest the Eruv encircling Crown Heights and that the leading Rabbis have expressed their disagreement with it.”
They should quickly figure out how to keep their eruv kosher (if it ever was) without the CH extension, this letter is full of self righteousness.
Please respect our neighbors and our own community thank you rabbi hecht… waiting for local rabbis to send a message to stop this disgusting behavior and vandalism
We never did in all these years..
We don’t pick these fights..
We are a peaceful community..
Yet w tremendous chutzpah..weather it was your shul or not..
You crossed into our community..dismissive of our rabbis and now you are crying wolf…
Be honest..remove the damage you have done and all the love will come back
The issue is that the eruv built in our community against the rebbe and against our bes din should not be connected to your eruv. It should not have been made.