U. to install Eruv boundaries across campus

The university will be installing Eruvin boundaries across campus and the local municipality and should be completed in the next three weeks,Dean of Religious Life Alison Boden said.

The boundaries will extend as far as Elm Road to North Harrison Street, according to the official map released by the Center for Jewish Life website in late August.

Eruvin boundaries, composed of poles or telephone wires, enable Jewish individuals that observe the Sabbath to perform normally prohibited activities, such as carrying personal items froma private space, such as a dorm room, into the public domain.

Boden noted there are 50 students with this level of observance at the University, but that its impact will also extend to faculty and local residents. The Center for Jewish Life houses the only Orthodox Jewish synagogue in the local municipality.

After unsuccessful attempts at launching the boundaries in the 1980s, the initiative for the university’s most observant Jewish students was revisited five years ago when students no longer used keys to access their rooms and instead used their University ID cards, Rabbi Julie Roth, the Executive Director of the Princeton Center for Jewish Life, explained.

Boden said that the project was first proposed by David Wolkenfield, the predecessor of the current head orthodox Rabbi.

“The approvals process has been great, the reason why it took so long is the number of poles involved,” she explained. “Each pole required its own paperwork.” The utility poles used for the boundaries are owned by companies PSE&G and Verizon.

Obstacles to complete the Eruvin project included acquiring approval to obtain the telephone poles and the fact that some parts of campus do not have any telephone wires, Roth said.

“In order to build an Eruv, you have to have a closed perimeter. Every part of the perimeter has to meet certain restrictions within Jewish law," she added.

Isaac Fink ’17, president of the Yavneh student board, said that the installation of the Eruvin is something orthodox students have been hoping for for many years. Fink noted that several other Ivy League Universities, including Harvard and Columbia, have installed such boundaries.

“It came into effect just because a lot of us here at the University knew that it would make a big improvement in the quality life of our most observant Jewish students and all of our peer schools have them. It's just the right thing to do,” Boden said.

Boden noted that the project encountered no resistance from the University, and that in the past the University had done a lot of different things to make it possible for observant students not to carry objects. Projects in the past to accommodate Sabbath-observant practice included jewelry and belts that incorporated keys, she said.

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“The Eruv is very important to the Princeton’s Jewish community as a tangible commitment to creating a campus that is inclusive of students who wish to observe all aspects of Jewish practice,” Shira Cohen '16, the president of the student board of the Center for Jewish Life, said.