The California Coastal Commission finds itself in the middle of an unusual conflict between Orthodox Jews and environmentalists, according to an AP story carried yesterday by the San Diego Union-Tribune. Families that attend an Orthodox synagogue on Venice Beach's boardwalk are seeking permission to build an eruv, a symbolic enclosure that would permit them under Jewish law to carry objects and push strollers and wheel chairs to synagogue on the Sabbath when various activities otherwise are prohibited. The $20,000 project would entail stringing 200-pound test fishing line along four miles of beach front between lamp posts and steel poles above 19 welcome-to-the-beach signs. A major problem, however, is that the line would run near a nesting area for dozens of endangered California least terns. Proponents suggest hanging reflective streamers on the string in this area so the birds will not run into it.
Mark Massara, director of the Sierra Club's California Coastal Program, criticizes the proposal that he says allows public property to be used for religious purposes. Coastal Commission staff is considering approval of the eruv for a three-year trial period.
