Talmudic Territory? Space, Law, and Modernist Discourse

This paper explores the conflict engendered by attempts to install an eruv a Talmudic, symbolic perimeter in the borough of Barnet, suburban, north-west London. On the Sabbath, Jewish law forbids a range of labour. This includes, as well as formal work, travelling, spending money, and carrying objects beyond the home. The eruv concerns this latter injunction. It enables objects to be carried or pushed within a non-domestic area through the creation of a bounded perimeter which notionally extends the private domain. Eruvin have become common in large urban districts in Canada, the United States of America, Australia, and Europe, as well as Israel. Nevertheless, the requirement symbolically to enclose space, including, in many instances, miles of urban city, and the dwellings of gentiles as well as Jews, has subjected eruv proposals to intense hostility, particularly where enclosure requires the installation of new structures rather than exclusively using existing edifices such as railway lines, fences, and walls. In Barnet, because the proposed boundary could not be fully completed through existing structures, an application was made for planning permission to erect a series of poles joined by thin, high wire to complete the perimeter. It was this application which generated fierce and prolonged battle. On the surface, the Barnet conflict can be read as a utilitarian contest of cost and benefit. According to proponents, an eruv would help mobilityimpaired people, and parents of young children to attend synagogue, go to the park, or visit relatives. Since nobody would suffer, there was no good reason to refuse permission (interviews by author). Critics disagreed. First, they claimed the degree of benefit had been greatly exaggerated. The number of observant Jews who were disabled, or parents of young children, was minimal,' and most could get rabbinical dispensation.2 Second, the extra