Turning the Public into Private

Photo Credit: Nati Shohat / FLASH90

A Haredi man stands on a ladder to hang the Eruv wire, near the Gilo neighborhood in south Jerusalem, on a Friday.

An Eruv Techumim (mixing of boundaries) is a legal fiction that transforms areas from public into private, depending on some prerequisite conditions. Once the Eruv is up, it is permissible for Jews to carry their belongings inside its boundaries.

Carrying one’s belongings on Shabbat in the public domain is one of the 39 labors that are prohibited on Shabbat.