Dan's Papers - May 23, 2008

The Westhampton Beach Village Trustees hold a meeting open to the public on the first Thursday of every month at Village Hall. What follows is an account of this meeting by someone who was there. I find it shocking.

What this meeting was not supposed to be about was the eruv. That would be discussed at a special meeting of the Trustees on May 28, when the matter would be voted upon.

The Trustees consist of the Mayor, Conrad Teller, and four Trustees - James Kemetler, Joan Levan, Toni-Jo Birk and Hank Tucker. So there are five of them. In any vote, there could be a majority.

An eruv is a religious structure, like a church steeple or the dome of a mosque or a manse, that consists of wires up on telephone poles, which high up encircle a particular community to symbolically unite it into a "home." It is something that rabbis in the Orthodox Jewish faith wish to have, for the simple reason that in that religion, the orthodox branch interprets the Bible in such a way as to prohibit certain behaviors outside the home on the Sabbath. The eruv, in creating a larger "home," simply allows these activities to take place. They include pushing a baby carriage and lifting heavy objects. So in an eruv, an Orthodox family would be able to push small children in strollers or baby carriages when they go to services on the Sabbath, rather than carry them. That's about it for what an eruv does, from a practical perspective.

In any case, there are eruvs in many cities and towns in the country. The courts have ruled that towns and villages must allow them, unless there are extraordinary circumstances in that community. There's an eruv surrounding the White House in Washington. There are at least five communities on Long Island that have eruvs up.

With that in mind, here is how this meeting progressed.

The Mayor opened the meeting by announcing that what they would not be discussing is the proposed eruv, because that would be adjudicated on May 28. He then asked if anybody had anything they wanted to talk about. A woman in the back stood up.

"I own a store on Main Street," she said, "and I'm Jewish. I wanted to know why you had police officers go from store to store the other day asking everybody if they had a problem with the Jews and the proposed eruv."

"I wanted to see if people are worried about it," Mayor Teller said.

"Don't you think that's a little intimidating, sending the police around?"

"Who else would we send?"

"Maybe you could walk around yourself. Or some of the Trustees could."

The Trustees looked at each other. Them? Actually walk around?

"Well," the Mayor said, "why don't we take a vote right now about the eruv?"

There was some talk about that, about whether they should wait until May 28 and whether it was appropriate to have it now when they were supposed to wait.

One person asked if the rumor was true that if they put an eruv up Jews would be free to walk right across your lawns, and the Mayor said no. Private property would still be private property.

Another person said they were opposed to the eruv because birds might fly into the wire and get hurt. Someone else said there are plenty of other wires on telephone poles and the birds don't fly into them.

In the back of the room sat two women. One of them leaned over and said something to the other loud enough for those around her to hear, but not for the Trustees to hear.

"Just what we need. More Jews."

The vote was taken. The Mayor added the phrase "at this time" to his proposal, so that, in the event it didn't pass, they could discuss it on May 28.

The Mayor voted in favor of it. So did Trustee Kemetler. But the two women Trustees, Joan Levan and Toni Jo Birk, voted no, as did Hank Tucker, who owns a cheesecake company in the industrial park up at the airport. So the vote did not pass.

After other matters were attended to, the meeting adjourned, and people filed out into the hall where they milled around. One person, who was shocked by what the women had said, told another that the women did not look familiar to him and he wondered whether they were from Westhampton Beach.

"They are from Quogue and Quiogue," his friend said, "not from Westhampton Beach."

And so everybody went home. The eruv matter will be discussed and voted upon again on May 28, as planned.