Not sure why Eric Gioia feels it is his duty to facilitate an influx of members of a particular religious group to his neighborhood (except that maybe he still has a little doorman inside him), but now he's getting the city to string up fishing lines in Sunnyside so Jewish people can pretend they're still inside their homes when they're not:Synagogue's fishing line helps lure Orthodox Jews
With Gioia's help and the agency's blessing, Young Israel was able to string together the eruv north of Queens Blvd., roughly between 39th and 43rd Aves. and between 39th and 55th Sts.
Yes even the strictist of religions have loopholes. You can't make this stuff up, folks.
36 comments:
This group is one of the prime example of tweeded. They vote the 'right' way.
So what is your point? Queens is run to benefit the clubhouse and anytime you see them actually DOING something you know there is a very very very good reason.
BTW, aren't these guys vocal, involved in a lot of real estate, and in favor of high density?
It's a little bewildering.
Here's an ancient religion that requires great sacrifice and devotion, whose practitioners apparently can go "Rabbi shopping" until a favorable interpretation of a loophole is composed. Then, with that ruling, the practitioners can claim complete devotion all the while actually violating the spirit of the original requirements of sacrifice. Perhaps the use of fishing line is a subliminal reference to the notion that the right Rabbi took the bait when the practitioners went fishing for a good ruling.
Why not simply openly discard the original requirement, explaining that it no longer fits into the modern world? Of course, it seems to me, that it would have been far, far more difficult to honor the requirement hundreds of years ago than it would be today when it is far easier to stock up on all necessities ahead of time to avoid the need to exit the home.
What other - secular - requirements can be ignored by the simple technique of creating a mentally gymnastic explanation (loophole) to justify the violation?
Can you say "campaign contributions" to further the misguided and self centered political career of Eric "where's the camera" Gioia?
This guy only does something when it directly benefits him.
Try making it in private industry Eric, then we will see what you are made of. You'll actually have to work for a living.
You know, what's ironic is that the Orthodox Jewish families (key word families) are settling into the area yetyou guys call it crap!! Thank God some families are moving into Sunnyside. How dare you say something bout about an eruv. I have never met a group of people from Queens that have an issue with some cultural diffusion. Wow, you guys should move out to the hicks land of Suffolk County. If anything, embrace the rebirth of SOMETHING in the ****hole we all call Queens!
Do you understand that the eruv basically goes around the entire neighborhood? Isn't that considered cheating or cafeteria judaism?
I couldn't care less if a new group wants to move into a neighborhood. What I don't understand is why Gioia is helping them do it.
Sunnyside is already a beautiful well-settled neighborhood. It doesn't need to be "reborn".
I never understood the whole erev concept. Do these people think they're fooling god?
Either you believe in the religion or you don't. Pick one. But don't go around thinking that you're clever because you artificially extended your living room into the entire neighborhood.
Why does the entire neighborhood have to deal with this?
with all due respect I think the guy's hat is on too tight.
I don't believe any one religious group has the right to cordon off public land for the benefit of their religion.
I'm sorry, I just can't get worked up about this. Every religion has loopholes and double-standards. Hey, Catholics can receive the Eucharist without going to confession now; that's a double standard too. Eruvs are fairly common practice. And stringing fishing line around the neighborhood isn't "cordoning" it off. As far as pulling strings with political clout, this is roughly as big a deal as getting some group a parade permit. I think there are bigger issues to worry about. (Unless some of you think this is a sign of the Internationalists moving in--you know, the Cabal that controls the Banks!)
Go ahead and worship the Bearded Man in the Sky however you want; every religion has its hypocrisies. I'll start worrying when the Satmars move in and want to build a synagogue. Which thus far, they haven't. (And before anyone says "Just wait! This is the tip of the iceberg!"--don't confuse Orthodox with Hasidic--they're different.)
Question is why it's considered newsworthy. Also, ask the people of Glendale about the Satmar.
"What I don't understand is why Gioia is helping them do it."
After the machine came in to spred their usual misinformation on landmarking, the neighborhood (being better educated than say Astoria or Dutch Kills), rejected it.
Scared the sh*t out of the machine becuase it, like the dollar that is really only a piece of paper, exists on the faith and credit of the public. Since they dont deliver services, but make money through honest graft, their relationship with the public depends on this imaginary image. Any erosion of it and you have a touchy issue that raises some deep concern with 'tha lads.'
If the public looses faith in the machine, and they don't believe it anymore, the machine could easily loose a community - well you know about the nail the horse and the kingdom.
These guys are the Hessians, brought in to vote as a block for the machine, get involved in real estate, and vote for massive upzoning.
Any more questions?
BTW, anyone like that seperation of church and state erosion?
'I think there are bigger issues to worry about. '
like humger mr doorman?
The First Amendment to the U.S.Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
For your consideration:
1) Religious entities get yellow lines painted on their buildings' fronting curbs forbidding parking to the general public.
2) Church bells are rung on Sundays throughout neigborhoods and also at noon on weekdays. (Mr.Softee jingles are banned while the vendor is stationary.)
3) Eruvs are strung on utility polls on public thoroughfares.
My prediction, in the not too distant future, you will hear the muezzin's call 5x a day from the minarets...And why not, the above violations of separation of church and state will be cited as precedent.
My prediction, in the not too distant future, you will hear the muezzin's call 5x a day from the minarets.
Its already starting to happen, know people that hear them at least once a day. On the other hand, churches don't ring bells anymore - it seems people are complaining that it interrupts their sleep - of course they would never dare complain about the muezzin's call cause they would be tarred 'racist' - by their own tweed loving politicians.
Fairlawn, New Jersey, I believe, does the same thing !
If I should trip
or happen to cut my throat on that Nylon fishing line....
I'm going to be rich after I sue the Temple and the City!
I'm a senior citizen and can't see so well .
Religious and political hypocrisy abound here !
Hire the "house Goy" to make light......
and the "the doorman" is entitled to
some votes from the pushka !
Fishing line.....huh.....
that's one helluva way to gerrymander a new district!
I wonder if the community knows what is happening.
Bussing in carpetbaggers until you get the results out of a community you want.
That is sick.... but this boy got the Kennedy Award from some group because he is an up an coming star in the party. You know, igoring the community as it get displaced but targeting on hungar (like that is a real problem in LIC) gets him lots of credit.
Helpful that the press around here is a lapdog. Helpful to have Team Gioia on board, too.
i dont see the big deal
someone obviously grants catholics permission to plant easter eggs in our parks each year and have a hunt.
not my religions annual activity, but you dont see me throwing a fit
boy, are you guys wound tight
Easter eggs are actually a pagan tradition used to celebrate the coming of Spring.
"someone obviously grants catholics permission to plant easter eggs in our parks each year and have a hunt.
not my religions annual activity, but you dont see me throwing a fit"
Nothing in the Catholic religion refers to Easter eggs. People from all sorts of religions use Easter eggs.
Not throwing a fit? Why refer to a "religious annual activity"? That slur was written in a fit of anger at a religion not your own.
People that plant Easter Eggs don't as a rule, vote as a block (like the doorman's new buddies) and are, as a rule, in favor of upzoning.
Come to think of it, you do need grass to hide the eggs. Looks pretty silly doing a hunt in the middle of a vast expanse of concrete.
Council Member Eric Gioia has been the most nauseating and incompetent elected official in my 50 years of living in Sunnyside. We've had to put up with his phony photo-ops, his publicity stunts, his grandstanding and his do-nothing approach to real problems. Every issue that I brought to him there is absolutely no movement, no follow-up and no communications whatsoever.
I don't believe there is a worst politician in NYC than EG.
voting in a block is the secret to success in america and especially moreso in the most ethnically diverse county in the country which this website is centered around
those that do it are smarter than those that dont
the unions proved it
the jews caught on
good for them
An eruv is not a loophole, it simply creates a single domain within a delineated area. In Orthodox Judaism, carrying between separate domains is prohibited on thew Sabbath. The rabbi cannot simply hang up the wires or markers on his own, he needs the recognition of the government.
While Reform and Conservative Jewish synagogues are shrinking, Orthodoxy is growing, due largely to its practice of forming tightly-knit communities, where all the members live within walking distance to a synagogue.
And the NIMBYs don't have to worry about traffic, we don't drive on the Sabbath and holidays.
As for the atheists, what makes orthodox Judaism different from Christianity and Islam is that we are not a missionary religion, we respect other cultures and seek only to bring less-observant Jews back to observance.
An eruv is not a loophole at all. The same rabbis who prohibited carrying allowed carrying when the area was enclosed by an eruv. There is no issue of separation of church and state since an eruv is not a religious symbol per se; it is only a string.
Some have little desire to share a community
with their other ethnically diverse brother and sister residents.
They look to dominate .....imposing their dogma
with little tolerance for the beliefs of others......
Medieval minds with an unbending will.
Ahmein.
That's why there will be little chance
of peace in the middle east!
Even the Israelis
have had their fill of religious extremism
and have moved these radical colonizers
out of Palestinian territory.
Please please please don't turn this into yet another endless Israel-Palestinian debate.
Whattsa matta wit you "mazeartist"....
too mamby-pamby for some real man talk ?
The main point is.....
the nabe's being exploited by inbred isolationists .....
a mere microcosm of the larger Israeli situation.
That's all.....10-4 !
it is only a string.
Then get rid of it...
I hope doorman Gioia knows more about Judaism
than Protestant former Mayor John V. Lindsay did.
Trying to cozy up to the Jewish vote
he once ordered a pastrami sandwich
and (I believe) a glass of chocolate milk.
Gioia's new tune.....
"all day long I'd diddy diddy boom....
if I were a wealthy man".
(Apologies to the late Zero Mostel).
Next week it might be "el rio rancho grande"....
whatever....to coax money or votes
from each appropriate ethnicity.
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