Testimony Concerning the Rebbe's Position on an Eruv in Crown Heights

The Crown Heights-specific position of the Rebbe is preserved chiefly through testimony rather than through a published Rebbe letter naming Crown Heights. The most important named accounts are Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner's written statement and the later Chitrik family account concerning Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik. Rabbi Yoel Kahn also left a signed statement describing his understanding of the Rebbe's published letters about eruvin in large cities.

Each of these accounts comes to us in a different form. Rabbi Groner states directly what he says the Rebbe told or reiterated concerning Crown Heights. The Chitrik account is a grandson's report of what he says he heard repeatedly from his grandfather about a conversation with the Rebbe, together with a later recollection from his grandmother. Rabbi Kahn's letter is his own synthesis of the Rebbe's published correspondence. Keeping those distinctions clear makes the testimony more useful, not less.

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner served for decades as one of the Rebbe's mazkirim. In May 2016, amid renewed discussion of an eruv in Crown Heights, he was asked for the Rebbe's position.

His written answer began by identifying the subject precisely:

"I was asked about the Rebbe's stance regarding constructing an Eiruv in our community of Crown Heights."

He then answered:

"The Rebbe strongly opposed making an Eiruv in our community, and he reiterated on several occasions that no one has permission to make an Eiruv here."

Rabbi Groner went on to urge Anash and Temimim to discard the proposal. He also invoked an earlier exchange over Melbourne. According to his statement, when his brother Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner and Rabbi Chaim Gutnick asked the Rebbe how to respond to a proposed eruv there, "the Rebbe's reply was that they should oppose it fiercely."

The central Crown Heights wording was published on May 11, 2016 as written quotes sent by Rabbi Groner for publication. A later bilingual reproduction contains the same English text and a Hebrew rendering, ending with the typed name "Yehuda Leib Groner." The reproduction does not display a handwritten signature. It should therefore be described as a later reproduction of Rabbi Groner's statement, not as an original signed manuscript.

That distinction does not change what Rabbi Groner is saying. It determines only how the statement should be attributed. This is written testimony from Rabbi Groner about the Rebbe's position; it is not a letter authored by the Rebbe.

The Hirshel Chitrik account

The second detailed Crown Heights account concerns Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik and was made public by his family in 2023.

The podcast Chatting Rabbis is co-hosted by Rabbi Eliezer Zalmanov and Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, both grandsons of Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik. In the episode "Eruv Controversy," published on February 23, 2023, one of the grandsons introduced the account by saying that he had heard it himself from his grandfather.

He explained that Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik's wife had young children and wanted to go to shul. Rabbi Chitrik asked the Rebbe about building an eruv in Crown Heights for that reason. The grandson then inserted an important qualification before giving the substance of the answer: this was what he had heard "from my grandfather several times."

He continued:

"The Rebbe told him that he should not build an eruv in Crown Heights unless it's going to be hidden."

The speaker then paraphrased what he understood that to mean: make an eruv, but do not tell people that there is an eruv. He explained that such an arrangement could help people who were carrying anyway without turning the eruv into a publicly relied-upon heter. Because Rabbi Chitrik's purpose had been to enable his wife to go to shul with the children, a concealed eruv would not accomplish that purpose. According to the grandson, this was why his grandfather did not build it.

The family account contains a second recollection. Years later, after Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik had passed away, the grandson told his grandmother that a Crown Heights eruv was again being discussed. He recalled that she reacted strongly and said that if an eruv were built she would move out of Crown Heights, because the Rebbe had told them not to build one. The grandson said that this conversation was important to him because he heard it independently from his grandmother after his grandfather could no longer repeat the account.

What this testimony establishes

The 2023 recording establishes that a named member of Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik's family publicly reported hearing the story repeatedly from his grandfather and later hearing an independent recollection from his grandmother. It does not supply a recording of Rabbi Chitrik's original conversation with the Rebbe. It also does not establish a secure date for that conversation.

For that reason, the sentence "unless it's going to be hidden" is properly quoted as the grandson's account of what Rabbi Chitrik told him. It should not be printed as though an audio recording of the Rebbe saying those English words had been found.

The substance, however, is specific. The story concerns an eruv in Crown Heights, a concrete family reason for asking about it, and an instruction that it not be built as a public eruv.

The meaning of a concealed eruv in the Rebbe's own writing

The Hirshel Chitrik account has an important parallel in a direct letter of the Rebbe.

On the first day of Chol Hamoed Pesach 5724, the Rebbe wrote to Rabbi Eliyohu Jung about an eruv in Manhattan. He first stated the general principle that where an eruv can be instituted according to Din, it should be instituted. He then discussed the danger created by public reliance on a modern city eruv. Once people become accustomed to carrying, an eruv can fail on a particular Shabbos without the news reaching everyone who relied upon it.

The Rebbe therefore wrote:

"the Eiruv, if one is feasable at all according to Din, should be carried out in the utmost secrecy."

He explained that the purpose of such a secret eruv would not be to allow a Jew to carry a tallis to shul. It would be to help people who were already carrying in violation of Shabbos.

This direct letter is highly relevant to the wording reported in the Chitrik family. It shows that "hidden" was not an incidental adjective. The Rebbe had expressly described a model in which an eruv could exist only as a concealed measure, without becoming public permission for ordinary carrying.

That also explains why the Hirshel Chitrik account and Rabbi Groner's more categorical statement about Crown Heights need not be read against each other. Rabbi Groner was asked about "constructing an Eiruv in our community of Crown Heights" and answered that the Rebbe strongly opposed it. The Chitrik account says the Rebbe would not allow Rabbi Chitrik to build the eruv he wanted unless it remained hidden. Both accounts exclude the public neighborhood eruv that was actually being sought.

Rabbi Yoel Kahn's signed statement

A further statement was written by Rabbi Yoel Kahn during Bein Hametzarim 5776. The surviving image contains the Hebrew text and a visible handwritten signature.

Rabbi Kahn wrote that he had read two questions about the eruv and regarded the matter as straightforward. On the first question, he wrote, in translation, that there are many letters printed in Igros Kodesh from which it is clear that the Rebbe opposed building and using an eruv in a large city. On the second question, he rejected the argument that circumstances had changed and warned against using that formula to set aside the Rebbe's directives generally.

Rabbi Kahn's statement is significant as the judgment of a leading chozer who knew the Rebbe's Torah and writings intimately. It is nevertheless important to identify exactly what he was writing. It is Rabbi Kahn's synthesis of the Rebbe's letters, not itself a newly discovered letter or quotation from the Rebbe. Its reference is to "large cities" generally, not to a personal Crown Heights conversation comparable to the Groner or Chitrik testimony.

The direct letters should therefore remain primary when explaining the Rebbe's city-eruv framework. Rabbi Kahn's letter shows how he understood that body of correspondence and how firmly he rejected the claim that a changed era simply displaced it.

Rabbi Avrohom Osdoba's report of Rabbi Groner's testimony

On 8 Iyar 5776, Rabbi Avrohom Osdoba wrote to residents of Crown Heights after receiving what he described as a detailed letter from Rabbi Groner.

Rav Osdoba wrote that the communication conveyed the Rebbe's words as:

"איך וועל ניט דערלאזן אז דא אין שכונה זאל זיין א עירוב"

The sense is: "I will not allow there to be an eruv here in the neighborhood."

Rav Osdoba concluded that there was therefore no room to support construction of an eruv in the neighborhood. This letter is another useful piece of the transmission chain because it records how a Crown Heights Rav understood the more detailed Groner communication at the time.

The Yiddish sentence must still be attributed correctly. It is preserved in Rav Osdoba's letter as wording he says Rabbi Groner conveyed from the Rebbe. It is not independently preserved here as the Rebbe's handwriting or as an audio recording.

Later in Sivan 5776, Rabbis Osdoba and Shlomo Segal issued a joint ruling that also referred to the Rebbe's explicit position against making an eruv in Crown Heights. Their psak belongs to the history of the Crown Heights Beis Din; its reference to the Rebbe shows that the testimony was not being treated merely as a private family memory.

The direct letters and the later testimony fit together

The strongest way to read the testimony is together with the Rebbe's own city-eruv correspondence, without confusing the two categories.

The direct letters establish several points in the Rebbe's own words. Where an eruv is halachically possible, there is a general principle in favor of establishing one. Whether a particular city actually qualifies must be decided by competent Rabbonim who have investigated its details. A city eruv should not be undertaken without a Rav particularly expert in Hilchos Eruvin. And the Rebbe repeatedly treated publicity as a separate danger because people who become accustomed to carrying may continue when the eruv fails.

The Crown Heights testimony then supplies the local application remembered by those involved. Rabbi Groner says the Rebbe strongly opposed making a Crown Heights eruv and repeatedly said no one had permission to make one there. The Chitrik family says Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik was told not to build one unless it remained hidden. Rav Osdoba records a parallel formulation received through Rabbi Groner. Rabbi Yoel Kahn, speaking more broadly, says the Rebbe's published letters oppose building and using an eruv in a large city.

These writings and recollections are not identical, and they should not be made identical. A direct letter is a direct letter. A recorded sicha is a recording. A secretary's written recollection is testimony. A grandson's report of what he repeatedly heard from his grandfather is family testimony. Once each is kept in its proper category, the Crown Heights account is both clearer and more precise.