Manhattan, NY – A community board will decide Tuesday whether to allow a temporary Jewish ritual hut to be constructed in a small New York City park.
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Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has urged Community Board 1 to approve the permit for the sukkah (SU’-kuh).
But according to The New York Times, (http://nyti.ms/odzmoR) some board members believe it would violate the First Amendment.
The parks department says it’s “content-neutral’ and allows them.
A sukkah is a temporary hut crafted to celebrate the Jewish holiday Sukkot (soo-KOHT’).
The structures evoke both farmers’ temporary field houses and Israelites’ transient homes during 40 years of desert wanderings.
The Chabad (hah-BAHD’) of TriBeCa (try-BEH’-kuh) wants to put one in Duane Park. Usually, sukkahs are erected on synagogue grounds and private properties.
Sukkot begins at sundown Oct. 12.
Meanwhile, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer has sent a letter to Neww York City Department of Parks and Recreation, stating his support to erect a Sukkah. Letter here PDF
So put it up and when they say you have 30 days to take it down, say, no problem…
It should NOT be built in the park.
People should build their succah in their own home.
I guess they make the argument, as with the chabad menorah, that a sukkah is not a religious symbol.
What function does a sukkah in a public park perform? Communal sukkahs in shuls or restaurants are placed for the convenience of Jews who need to eat in them or who have no sukkahs of their own. The sukkah in Duane Park serves neither function, nor is there any inyan of parsumei nissa by Sukkos as there is with Chabad menorahs on Chanukah.
This is a very bad idea…Most yidden don’t want to see nativity displays in public parks and a succah is no better than the blatantly religious X’mas displays. Keep religion at home and in shul and don’t make our parks a battleground over relgious observance. There are few enough parks in Manhattan as it is and we should be wasting an inch of valuable green space with these symbolic displays.
The function a Sukkah serves in a park is that it enables me and my family to go the park and enjoy a nice picnic outing on Succoss.
When I have am in midtown on Chol Hamoed, I don’t always want to spend the money going to a restaurant to use their sukkah. Thus the sukah’s in the park are apreciated.
way to go Mr. Stringer. why aren’t more pols getting in on this?
Doesn’t chabad have a succah mobile that drives around? Why do they have to put one up in the park?
When the Board starts refusing approval to put up the “holiday trees” then the Board can turn down this request. Until then… construct it.
Yidden are taxpaying citizens of this town, stop cowtowing like we don’t have a right to do this. We are not destroying anything, and as long as everyone cleans up after themselves, what’s the problem?
This same Community Board had no problem with the Mosque near Ground Zero and I guess these members who are screaming against the sukkah voted for the Mosque.
and it wont require too much imagination who opposes it….the same kind who oppose eiruvs…
The separation of religion from state was written by our “founding fathers” for a reason and with a specific intent which was because the place they came from, their state, had persecuted religion.
The intent was not to be persecuted, as the liberals of today, want to turn it on it’s head that the state should persecute religion in the sense that wherever anyone wants to practice religion publicly, the sate should try and stop them if they can find any possible reason of how and why to stop them ‘legally’.
On the contrary:
Not allowing a sukah in any park is infringing on Jews civil liberty to be able to eat in the park just as everyone else can, except that Jews can’t do so unless they have a Suka in the park.
Furthermore:
The Suka is a place where anyone can come in and eat freely, not only Jews and not only anyone, who needs it ,because their religion will not allow them to eat, without it.
Any Goy who has no religion or has any other religion is also welcome to come inside and eat his sandwich, if he likes to.
Even a prisoner has right to be able to eat in accordance with the requirement of his religion. Let our parks not restrict us more than a prisoner in prison
Am I missing something? Last year there was a display of “unusual” archtectural sukkahs–this was some kind of competition, but wasn’t this display on public property? And why no one made a fuss then, but everyone was ooh and aah over these sukkahs? (some of which were not kosher, but others were)
Unless, you are talking about frum jews with no sukkah in their condo or coop buildings in the neighborhood for whom the issue is eating kosher food, but doing so in a sukkah rather than at home or in one of the many “mobile sukkahs” on flatbed trucks roaming around the city during yom tov.
Can a succah in a public park possibly be analogous to a vending machine on state property selling a kosher bag of chips?
In both cases the succah and bag of chips are not jewish religous symbols, rather items that happen to make life for a religious Jew easier. (I think you can say the same about an eruv)
omg. its not permament….its temporary. some people in tribeca/chelsea actually need a succah.
Re: 24. Does something that is muttar make it somehow preferable or as good as li’chatchila? Yes one can eat outside a sukkah if it is a seudas arai, but there is a mitzvah to eat in a sukkah, and I don’t think that doesn’t apply to a seudas arai as well.
Secondly , what about those that only eat in a sukkah? Have you ever thought of them , or is b’dieved now the standard for every jew?
Gut gebenched yar
yes we need to protect our rights,the lubavitchter rebbe says in his letters that we are citzens here in america,and if we go along with lefists jews,you are saying we have no rights in america,of course in a mentshen way,this should be done,we pay taxes too. more people should get involved,we are citzens,too,we live here
there are people who work in areas near parks that could have a succa. it would give them the opportunity to eat their lunches in a succa.
i vote ”YES””
Putting up a succah on a property without permision means you are stealing which is an issur midioraisa even when stealing from a goy or the public. The kashrus of the succah is being somech on karka eino nigzeles which means you can eat in there and it is not considered eating outside of a succah. However you cannot make a bracha leisheiv ba’succah.
And i think we should never think that just cause they put trees in public parks come December we have a right and a need to put menorahs and succahs in public too.