The eruv as a social construct

A town in northern New Jersey called Mahwah is fighting against the influx of new Jewish residents by fighting the eruv. They assume that if they can get the eruv removed, the Jews won't want to live there.

We will see if they are right or not. They did successfully get the eruv banned and removed. 1200 signatures on a petition made the township force its removal. The eruv builders had received permission to attach plastic tubes to utility poles, and the city is considering these tubes and pipes to be signage that must be removed.

According to INN:

Many of the dozens of comments accompanying the petition, titled “Protect the Quality of our Community in Mahwah,” refer to “these people” and express concerns about falling property values. Most of them are anonymous.
“I don’t want these rude, nasty, dirty people who think they can do what they want in our nice town,” one of the comments reads.
Another says: “I do not want the town of Mahwah to turn into an undesirable place to live. These people do not assimilate with other people outside their community. I do not want them controlling our school board and siphoning funds for their yeshivas. Also, they buy houses which they claim is for religious purposes and do not pay taxes. They should stay where they are and leave our town alone.”

Notwithstanding individual people, Jews in general are not dirty and they are not ruder or nastier than anyone else - even East Coast Jews relative to East Coast EveryoneElse. When Jews move in, real estate prices generally go up, not down. And nobody knows who else is paying or not paying taxes - at least not until people get arrested for it. Basically this is all just anti-semitism, or a convenient cover for trying to prevent your hometown lifestyle from changing.

I have no problem with them trying and find it totally understandable, as long as real anti-semitism isn't involved, but it is unlikely to work, as at the end of the day market forces will win the day. If they organize, the way some other groups do, and refuse to sell homes, they might succeed. If they do not, individuals will take the higher prices offered by a few buyers to start, and then a  trickle will become a flood.

What is more interesting is the idea that the presence of the eruv means Jews will move in and its removal means Jews will stay away. Let us not forget that the communities with an eruv in the USA were rare until recently. Now people are used to having an eruv, but it is still a relatively recent phenomenon. I think people will still move in even without an eruv, unless they find a better town to take over, and when they achieve critical mass they will get their eruv approved.

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