New York’s governor will visit a Long Island synagogue embroiled in a controversy over an eruv.
David Paterson will speak Saturday at the Hampton Synagogue, which has been the target of what some have described as an anti-Semitic campaign sparked by the congregation’s desire to construct an eruv, a symbolic boundary that permits observant Jews to carry items on the Sabbath.
The synagogue, located in the tony enclave of Westhampton Beach, temporarily withdrew the eruv request in May after a series of well-attended public meetings on the proposal. A number of e-mails also were sent to locals warning that the eruv would alter the community’s makeup by making the town a magnet for Orthodox Jews.
A full-page advertisement in June in the Southampton Press warned that the eruv would transform Westhampton Beach into an Orthodox community.
Paterson is expected to address the eruv controversy and anti-Semitism.
