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Comment by steviedotboston | Hacker News Reader

http://eruvstat.us - a website for Jewish communities to use to send notifications about the status of their eruv.

I have a couple cities using it for free at the moment, but would like to get more signed up to at least break even on hosting costs. It's a pretty niche service, and so far it seems like there isn't much interest...

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This reminds me of a video from "Half as interesting", is this also an eruv?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPYp3lOOOrg

Yep! As that video shows, eruvs are built with lots of poles and wires, which can come down due to construction or bad weather. It's important for observant jews to confirm that the eruv is "up" before they rely on it to carry on Shabbat

Very impressive actually, do you know if the poles and ropes are all on private property or is it allowed to have them on "public ground"?

Judaism never fails to impress me since since I discovered the YouTube series from Peter Santenello about hasidic jews (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YTmrCLeidc&list=PLEyPgwIPkH...)

That's actually a very important part of eruv construction. In order to build an eruv, you need permission from the city government. Every 20 years or so, the Rabbi in charge of a city's eruv will meet with the mayor and have a ceremonial "rental" of the property encompassed by the eruv, and will pay the city a dollar.

Eruvs often make use of existing walls, utility poles and cables which are on public property, but if any extra poles or wires are needed they are paid for entirely from donations.

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