Dan's Papers - August 29, 2008 - An Extraordinary Week

Extraordinary things happen in the Hamptons. But last week there were three very extraordinary things.

Two of them happened as a result of the event at the Southampton Publick House on Wednesday, August 6. Just before midnight, a bouncer asked a man who was dancing on a table to please get down. The man on the table was 6'1" Anthony Oddone, age 25. The bouncer was 6'4" Andrew Reister, age 40. What happened after that will be discussed in court, where Oddone will soon stand trial for second-degree murder. He got Reister in a chokehold and, try as anyone might, nobody present could pry his fingers off Reister's neck. Reister died.

According to those who knew him, Reister was one of the nicest people to ever walk this planet. Born and raised in Southampton, he was a family man with a wife of nearly 20 years and two young children. In Hampton Bays, where he had a home, he was a Little League coach. He worked full-time at the Riverhead County Jail as a corrections officer, and often led drives to raise money for other corrections officers in need. He played golf on the weekends and for extra money moonlighted at the Publick House. In Riverhead, after this tragedy, other corrections officers set up a fund to raise money for Reister's widow.

Oddone, also a golfer, was on the golf team at the college he attended, and in the summer worked full-time as a caddy at The Bridge, a private golf club in Bridgehampton. After this tragedy, the father of Oddone's girlfriend sent an e-mail to the press that said he knew Oddone to be a fine young man, and was absolutely horrified at what had happened.

The first extraordinary thing that happened as a result of this awful tragedy is that the inmates at the jail in Riverhead have set up their own fund to help Reister's widow.

The second is that at The Bridge, the golf club has set up a fund so the members can help pay for Oddone's legal representation. In a press release announcing the creation of this fund, the club stated that everyone who knew Oddone - and you get to know the caddies pretty well when you spend the day on a golf course with them at a private club - say that Oddone was a fine young man. They also say that their hearts go out to the family of the victim of this tragedy.

The third extraordinary thing that happened this past week was not on the plus side, as far as I am concerned. It happened in Westhampton Beach, when the rabbi there called for everyone in the town to come to the synagogue to get information about an eruv. The rabbi had proposed that an eruv, which is a thin line on telephone poles that encircles a town, be put in Westhampton Beach. With the line up, Orthodox Jews - and about 30 percent of the congregation is Orthodox - could go to services during the Jewish Sabbath by pushing babies in carriages or strollers rather than carrying them as they walk what is for certain congregants a very long distance from their homes to the synagogue on Sunset Avenue in that town.

The proposal to put up the eruv was made to both the lighting company with the poles and to members of the village board, who have jurisdiction, last spring. And although there are eruvs in many cities and towns all over America - there's even one around the White House - and although the courts have decided a city or town cannot refuse to have an eruv unless there are very compelling reasons, there was nevertheless considerable opposition expressed to the erection of an eruv in Westhampton Beach. There was so much opposition, including anti-Semitic phone calls and e-mails (anonymously of course), that the rabbi had withdrawn his proposal, saying he wanted to instead reconsider it in the fall after having a few educational meetings with the townspeople about what an eruv was or was not.

At the synagogue, the rabbi was planning to report that the Bible says you cannot do any work on the Sabbath, which is from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. You cannot carry things. You cannot lift things. You cannot turn on electricity or use a car. And though rabbis long ago said there were a few emergency exceptions to this inside the Jewish home, such as pushing strollers and baby carriages, out on the public streets the law would be strictly enforced. Nevertheless, he would tell them, years later, that the rabbis made a further interpretation which said that if you could put a string high up around a town on poles, it would be symbolically interpreted as the walls of your home. Thus, the exceptions allowed in your own home would be allowed in your extended home. And that's why they needed an eruv. Indeed, he would tell them, probably the only difference anybody would notice was that Orthodox women would be pushing baby carriages to the synagogue as they walked, rather than carrying children.

But for most who came, he never got that far. After just the first 10 minutes of the meeting, nearly half the people attending the meeting in the synagogue angrily got up and walked out.

The reason was that Joel Cohen, a respected member of the synagogue who had been chosen to moderate this event, began the meeting by reading aloud 32 hateful anti-Semitic e-mails that had been sent to Jewish community members in town.

After a few minutes of this reading, which included various "f" words and "s" words - he was reading these aloud in the synagogue - a man in the audience got up and shouted, "This is supposed to be an informational meeting!" Another shouted, "Please let us have a conversation, not a lecture." And a third and fourth stood up and shouted, "You're only inciting everyone," and "You're starting this off all wrong." And with that, about half the people in the room got up and left.

And so there you have it. Two wonderful things that put love in the air and one hateful thing that got shoved into the faces of those who came to hear about the proposed eruv.

It does no good, in my opinion, for Joel Cohen to say, after it was over, that he only did it "to show what was inciting the town." A captive audience, many of them non-Jews who may have been the subject of prejudice themselves for the color of their skin, their gender or their beliefs, had to listen to what this one group had to put up with.

Everyone knows that the way to smoke out a bigot is to throw what he said back in his face, or read it aloud in public with the hate-mongers present. This implied that some of those there were such people. Had they meant me? Some might rightfully have thought. Terrible.

Had they posted the 32 e-mails in the lobby and told people they were there, it would have been a whole other matter.

But let's cut to the chase. The real fear of those opposed to the eruv is that strictly Orthodox Jews could say to one another, "Did you hear? Westhampton Beach has an eruv!" And all move out here and take over. It's not a matter of Jews, however. It could be any people who have their own ways. What happens is that when such groups go somewhere in droves, becomes a majority and begins to publicly admonish those among themselves who don't keep to these beliefs, they sometimes accidentally admonish others in the community who soon feel so intimidated they move away. And we all know this happens. People, whether strict or lax, have a right to worship and live as they choose without this intimidation, either one way or the other way. That's what this country is all about.

The solution? I think there should be an eruv around ALL of Long Island. I'm serious. I think Suffolk County Supervisor Steve Levy and the Nassau County Supervisor Thomas Suozzi should get together and jointly decide that an eruv should be built from Montauk to Queens. Women should be allowed to push baby carriages when they go to worship, or anywhere else.

And I think that when the Jews bless this eruv, members of the Catholic and Protestant and Muslim faiths should come and bless it, too.

And if the more Orthodox of those other religious leaders can figure out something in their religions that you can do at home that you aren't allowed to do in public, just as this piece of string thus permits, all the better.