Lubavitch temple to rebuild storm-torn ‘eruv’

About three years ago, the Chabad-Lubavitch temple west of Boynton Beach built the area’s first “eruv,” a man-made perimeter that allows Orthodox Jews to carry things within its boundaries on the Sabbath.

Jewish laws prohibit work on the Sabbath, including driving to synagogue or carrying anything while walking to the temple.

The eruv symbolically extends the private domain, or home, where Jews are permitted to carry on the Sabbath, including the public areas over which they must walk to reach synagogue.

Made of nylon rope and plastic poles, and using power lines and existing walls where available, the eruv allowed observant Jews to push strollers and to carry children, snacks, umbrellas and other supplies as they walked to the temple on El Clair Ranch Road.

But when Hurricane Wilma came through in October, its winds destroyed the eruv, which covered 10 square miles west of Boynton Beach.

“It was totally demolished and we have to start from scratch and rebuild it,” said Rabbi Sholom Ciment, who leads the congregation.

The project is expected to cost about $15,000, and the temple has asked each family that benefits from the eruv to contribute $100 to its reconstruction.

This time, however, Ciment said the temple plans to build an upgraded eruv that should be able to withstand up to a Category 3 hurricane. Changes include redesigning the way the eruv attaches to utility poles.

But the reconstruction won’t begin, Ciment said, until Florida Power & Light Co. finishes its ongoing work replacing and upgrading power lines and poles.

“We will rebuild it in conjunction with FPL and the county,” he said.

In the meantime, a temporary eruv has been built around the temple and the adjacent housing development, Wyndsong Estates, where many of the congregation’s young families live.

“The biggest problem was carrying children and the diapers and pacifiers and things that come with children,” said Ciment, who added that the area’s growing Jewish population makes it imperative that the eruv be rebuilt.

He referred to recent surveys by the county’s Jewish Federations that show Boynton Beach is the fastest-growing Jewish area in the county — growing by an average of 2,000 Jewish households a year in the past six years.

“Boynton Beach is very much on the map in the Jewish world,” said Ciment, who is accelerating plans to build a preschool and establish a western satellite office for the temple. “That only calls for us to double, triple and quadruple our efforts on behalf of the Jewish community.”