Flatbush and Boro Park

Flatbush and Boro Park occupy a central place in Rav Moshe Feinstein's Brooklyn rulings because proposed eruvin in those neighborhoods forced the larger Brooklyn question into practical form. Rav Moshe did not treat either neighborhood as a small independent town simply because an eruv line could be drawn around it. He analyzed each proposal within the physical and population realities of Brooklyn.

The surviving record is unusually direct. Two responsa in Orach Chaim IV address Flatbush. A separate letter dated 17 Teves 5739 addresses Boro Park. Orach Chaim V:28 later answers at length arguments advanced for the Flatbush and Boro Park eruvin.

Rav Moshe's first Flatbush responsum

Orach Chaim IV:87, dated 15 Shevat 5738, is titled Din Eruv B'Flatbush. Rav Moshe explains that prominent Rabbonim had come to him about establishing an eruv in Flatbush. He originally told them that he did not want to intervene because there were several shitos in the definition of reshus harabim and related questions, and qualified Rabbonim could study the sources themselves.

That restraint is part of the record and should not be erased. Rav Moshe was not claiming that every competent Rav who analyzed every eruv must mechanically repeat his conclusion.

But another part of the same passage is equally important. A report went out that Rav Moshe himself was permitting the eruv. He therefore wrote to state what he personally held. His responsum then develops the city-wide shishim ribo analysis and applies it to Brooklyn and Flatbush.

He calls Brooklyn "one city filled with population" and explains that Flatbush can be considered together with the continuous Brooklyn city over the relevant area. According to his view, six hundred thousand need not pass down one Flatbush avenue each day if the necessary public population is found throughout the streets of the urban area.

"Even in one part such as Flatbush"

Orach Chaim IV:88, dated 4 Shevat 5739 in the printed Igros Moshe, opens more sharply:

I have already explained orally the reason I hold that an eruv should not be made in Brooklyn, even in one part such as Flatbush.

Rav Moshe then says that in a large city like Brooklyn, the burden falls on the person seeking to permit on the ground that six hundred thousand are absent to establish that factual claim. He points to the density of Brooklyn's apartment buildings and the number of people concentrated in a small area.

The responsum also discusses Coney Island and Brighton Beach, where large numbers of people entered on summer days. Rav Moshe considers whether such influxes count under the formulation requiring six hundred thousand every day. He allows that the word "every day" may create room to distinguish seasonal surges, but he does not use that possibility to permit the Flatbush eruv. His broader Brooklyn reasons remain.

Later he writes that a city map showed Brooklyn, as he understood it, to be approximately twelve mil by twelve mil and a little more. He records close to three million permanent residents and close to another million entering for business, visits, and regular work. On that premise he considered Brooklyn a full reshus harabim min haTorah.

The Boro Park letter of 17 Teves 5739

The Boro Park dispute produced a short, forceful letter on the stationery of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada. The surviving copy is a later reproduction in the 2006 Community Eruvin booklet, but the facsimile visibly shows Rav Moshe's handwritten signature.

Rav Moshe writes that he joined the leading Rabbonim of the Union and other Rabbonim in holding that no eruv should be established in Brooklyn because it is a Torah-level public domain. He rejects what had been publicized in the newspapers about relying on the Boro Park eruv and concludes:

Therefore I warn that no eruv should be established in any neighborhood of Brooklyn, and it is forbidden to carry on the eruv that was made in Boro Park.

The letter itself refers to an earlier responsum as dated 4 Shevat 5738. The printed Orach Chaim IV:88 bears the date 4 Shevat 5739. The discrepancy exists in the surviving texts and should not be silently corrected.

V:28 treats Flatbush and Boro Park together

Orach Chaim V:28, dated 2 Adar I 5741, is Rav Moshe's most sustained answer to arguments made in defense of the Brooklyn neighborhood eruvin. He opens by saying that he is writing an explanation of what he had said, namely that an eruv should not be made in Brooklyn even in one part such as Flatbush, and that the same is true of Boro Park.

He then records that some Rabbonim had established eruvin in Flatbush and Boro Park relying on Rav Menashe Klein, who had published a series of reasons for permitting. Rav Moshe answers those reasons one by one. The complete exchange belongs to a fuller study of the respective shitos, but several points are indispensable to understanding his Brooklyn ruling.

Each section could qualify independently

Rav Moshe states:

But Brooklyn, every significant section such as Flatbush and Boro Park and the like, is a reshus harabim in its own right, since in each one, within an area even smaller than twelve mil by twelve mil, there are six hundred thousand.

That was Rav Moshe's factual premise. Later demographic studies have disputed whether the named neighborhoods themselves had resident populations anywhere near six hundred thousand. His city analysis elsewhere shows that he was considering more than a neighborhood census total.

People in cars count as public passage

One argument sought to exclude motorists because the interior of a car can have the status of a private domain. Rav Moshe rejects that reasoning for the population calculation. Cars exist to transport people through the streets, and the people using them remain part of the public movement.

Traffic controls do not make the street private

Rav Moshe likewise rejects reliance on red lights, stop signs, and traffic restrictions. Such laws regulate the public's movement so that the streets can function safely. They do not remove public access.

Claimed surrounding walls require facts

The possibility that Brooklyn might be surrounded by halachically effective walls or natural boundaries had been discussed for decades. Rav Moshe says in V:28 that, as far as he knew, the claimed surrounding mechitzos were not established and that the matter could be checked factually. He does not permit a neighborhood eruv by assuming that Brooklyn is already enclosed.

A straight gate-to-gate street is not required in an unwalled city

Rav Moshe analyzes the sources requiring a public street to be mefulash or aligned from gate to gate. His conclusion is that this requirement concerns a city whose surrounding walls otherwise give it the character of a private domain. Brooklyn and other American cities without such surrounding walls do not need one perfectly straight street running from one city gate to another in order to be a reshus harabim.

Sidewalks are public streets too

He also writes that sidewalks are part of the reshus harabim itself because they are made for public pedestrian travel. Parked vehicles do not permanently narrow the street, and moving vehicles do not become stable walls that enclose the people traveling between them.

The public notices of 5739

The Flatbush and Boro Park rulings did not remain private correspondence. In Kislev 5739, a Union of Orthodox Rabbis proclamation warned against making eruvin in New York and framed the issue as one applying to large cities generally. Rav Moshe's name is printed among the Rabbonim listed on the surviving reproduction.

Another Kislev 5739 Hebrew notice, carrying approximately seventy-three printed rabbinic names, addresses the attempt to establish an eruv in Flatbush and declares that an eruv should not be set up in New York or Brooklyn neighborhoods. Rav Moshe's name appears in that list as well.

A surviving English newspaper advertisement contains parallel language. It reproduces, in translation, the opening substance of Rav Moshe's Flatbush ruling and states that an eruv may not be set up in any neighborhood of New York or Brooklyn. It also prints the names of seventy-three Rabbonim. The surviving image is only a newspaper crop and has not been matched to a full issue with a verified date and page, so its exact publication details remain uncertain.

Flatbush and Boro Park therefore matter beyond their own neighborhood histories. They show how Rav Moshe applied his understanding of reshus harabim to an actual attempt to carve smaller eruv areas out of Brooklyn, and why he continued to regard the surrounding city as halachically decisive.