The nation’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization has thrown its support behind efforts to defend a controversial Jewish boundary known as an eruv, which officials in two Bergen County towns have demanded be removed.
In a statement Wednesday, the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, singled out Mahwah for criticism. Township leaders argue that the eruv – marked by white PVC pipes on utility poles – violates local zoning law.
“In an era of legitimized racial and religious bigotry, the bigots have been emboldened,” said CAIR New Jersey Executive Director James Sues. “This is clearly a case of religious intolerance hiding behind a thin veil of barely-applicable local ordinances.”
Mahwah Mayor Bill Laforet declined to comment on CAIR’s statement.
“We are limited as to how we can respond due to pending litigation,” he said.
In June, a New York Orthodox Jewish group extended a 26-mile eruv from lower New York State into Mahwah and Upper Saddle River to accommodate families who live in New York near the New Jersey state line. The group attempted to expand the eruv into Montvale as well, but the mayor there issued a stop order.
Mahwah and Upper Saddle River officials say the eruv was built without the local government’s consent, and are in violation of local zoning law that prohibits signs on utility poles.
Hundreds of residents have backed this stance, with some voicing concern that New York State’s large Orthodox Jewish population would potentially move across the New York border into Bergen County.
Multiple acts of vandalism against the eruv have been reported, leading Mahwah police to open a hate crime investigation. In Upper Saddle River, an 80-year-old borough resident was charged last month with criminal mischief for allegedly removing a PVC pipe from a utility pole.
Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, who oversaw the eruv’s construction through the two towns, said he was not aware of CAIR’s endorsement, but welcomed the support.
“I don’t see anything wrong with what they’re saying,” he said. “It shows that other people on our side.”
The contested eruv, marked by some 120 PVC pipes along utility poles in Mahwah, allows Orthodox Jews to push and carry objects outside their homes on the Sabbath and Yom Kippur.
Attorneys for the Bergen Rockland Eruv Association filed a federal lawsuit after Mahwah threatened to issue summonses if the religious boundary remained intact. Last week, Mahwah officials hired their own legal defense.
A similar dispute erupted in Tenafly in 2000, when a local Jewish group sued for the right to mark the ritual boundary. The town lost that fight.