Rabbi Lamm - Here is the article on the Manhattan Eruv that you requested. I look forward to speaking about it with you. All the best, Adam. The Seforim Blog, Monday, February 26, 2007. In a previous contribution, Rabbi Adam Mintz discussed the significant roles of Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in developing a halakhic response to the issue of the mehitzah in the American synagogue. The following is a historical and halakhic overview of the Manhattan eruv, based on Rabbi Mintz’s doctoral dissertation, The Evolution of the American Orthodox Community: The History of the Communal Eruv (NYU, forthcoming). The first Manhattan eruv was created in 1905 by Rabbi Yehoshua Seigel, known as the Sherpser Rav, who utilized Manhattan’s riverbanks and the Third Avenue El; his eruv served the Lower East Side but was later deemed invalid by Rabbi Henkin in Edut Le-Yisrael (1949) because the rental had expired and circumstances had changed. In 1949, the Amshinover Rebbe asked Rabbi Tzvi Eisenstadt to explore a borough-wide eruv, which was eventually completed in 1962 under Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, in responsa written from 1952 onward, opposed the Manhattan eruv on halakhic grounds but acknowledged its proponents acted l’shem shamayim; in public letters, he refused to condemn those who relied upon it, though he would not participate. Rabbi Henkin, by contrast, supported the project with reservations, signing as part of the “Committee for the Sake of the Manhattan Eruv” in 1960, and writing letters that permitted reliance in cases of great need (for women and children, for doctors, and for Succot). In 1962, however, the Agudath HaRabbanim — led by Rabbis Aharon Kotler, Moshe Feinstein, Yaakov Kamenetsky, and others — formally forbade the eruv, declaring anyone who relied on it a Shabbat violator. Rabbi Feinstein later referenced this decision in Iggerot Moshe, distinguishing Manhattan from areas like Kew Gardens Hills, where he suppo…