The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging Milwaukee County to remove a hazardous eruv line from public property that could have decapitated a bicyclist recently injured by one. Eruvin are perimeters, often created by wire, that Orthodox Jews put up to extend private spaces, allowing them to avoid Sabbath restrictions.
A Milwaukee County resident riding his bike down a hill on Lincoln Memorial Drive near the Linnwood Water Treatment plant in mid-September was snagged around his neck by an eruv wire, which had detached from one of its anchors. The wire skated across his neck, leaving prominent marks on the front, side and back of his neck. If the wire had caught around his neck at any point, he might have been killed.
The resident didn’t learn until days later that the wire is part of an eruv installed by an Orthodox Jewish group with the support of the county. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, this eruv is a wire perimeter encompassing five square miles across the east side, Shorewood and Whitefish Bay. This is reportedly the third time one of the wires has fallen in the past few years.
“Even before this unnerving incident, there was no reason for Milwaukee County to grant one religious sect special privileges to hang wires on public property in order to help them avoid their self-imposed religious obligations,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line writes to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. “Now that it’s apparent that the wires also pose a danger to citizens, and potential liability for the county and its taxpayers, any eruv in Milwaukee County encompassing public property should be removed.”
The Jewish Encyclopedia notes the rationale for designating these religious areas: “According to the traditional interpretation of Exodus 16:29, it is forbidden to remove on the Sabbath things from an enclosed space which is private property to an open space which is public property. Likewise it is prohibited to transport objects a distance of more than four cubits within an open space. The only space in which it is allowed to remove things freely is an enclosed space which is the property of an individual.”
It is a fundamental principle of Establishment Clause jurisprudence that the government cannot favor one religion over another or religion over nonreligion. Risking the health and safety of Milwaukee County residents, while also taking on unnecessary legal liability that puts taxpayer dollars at risk, to support a religious concept observed only by a minority of believers of a single faith, is not neutrality.
And allowing Orthodox Jews to permanently demarcate large areas of public property as a private Jewish household that is “property” of the Orthodox Jewish community forces those of other faiths and of no faith to live within an Orthodox Jewish religious enclosure, including members of other Jewish denominations who are offended by the Orthodox Jewish elevation of legalistic constructs over what they believe to be the true spiritual values of Judaism. This is precisely the kind of divisive religious argument in which our government cannot take sides.
Permitting an eruv demonstrates governmental support for designating the enclosed area, in this case parts of Milwaukee’s Upper East Side neighborhood, Shorewood and part of Whitefish Bay, as affiliated with Orthodox Judaism. The East Side Eruv extends Orthodox Jewish private property to 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 particular religious sect. This imposes Orthodox Judaism on members of the public by surrounding their community with physical markers of a religion they do not practice.
Furthermore, by allowing these wires to be hung on and across county property, Milwaukee County and its taxpayers are liable for any injuries or damage caused by these wires, despite not being in charge of maintaining or overseeing the wires. This is a major liability for county taxpayers that can be alleviated by ending county participation.
FFRF asserts that there is no need for an eruv on public property surrounding parts of Milwaukee County.
“It is not the government’s responsibility to help religionists follow their own rules,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “Milwaukee County has a duty to observe religious neutrality and to protect bicyclists, pedestrians and others put at risk by this dangerous and risky practice.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members across the country, including more than 1,700 members and its headquarters in Wisconsin. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
