At city hall on Monday, New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams signed a Jewish legal contract, along with an official proclamation, that will make Sabbath observance significantly easier for the hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jews who live in Brooklyn, New York—and especially the ḥasidic enclave of Borough Park. The documents establish an eruv, an elaborate legal fiction consisting of a “wall” that gives the area it encloses the status of a private courtyard in which carrying out of doors, normally prohibited on Shabbat, is permitted. Yehudit Garmaise writes:

A new eruv surrounds all of Borough Park, and most of Brooklyn. . . . While the first part of completing an eruv is building and repairing the eruv’s “doors” and “virtual walls” the second part is that the city’s mayor or police commissioner must rent the eruv to the Jewish community, Rabbi Eli Uminer, [a member of the committee that oversees the eruv], explained.

While in the past, the city had given the Jewish community a verbal agreement, today at City Hall, Mayor Eric Adams completed the project by signing a 99-year lease for one dollar, “to allow carrying in the boundaries of the eruv in accordance with Jewish law,” the mayor’s signed proclamation said.

“It was very nice that the mayor took the time to host us and to make the eruv for us,” said Rabbi Uminer, who was at City Hall today along with other Brooklyn Eruv Vaad [council] members.

Before exploding electronics in Lebanon seized the attention of the Israeli public, debate there had focused on the Philadelphi Corridor—the strip of land between Gaza and Egypt—and whether the IDF can afford to withdraw from it. Egypt has opposed Israeli control of the corridor, which is crucial to Hamas’s supply lines, and Egyptian objections likely prevented Israel from seizing it earlier in the war. Yet, argues Mariam Wahba, Egypt in the long run only stands to lose by letting Hamas use the corridor, and has proved incapable of effectively sealing it off:

Ultimately, this moment presents an opportunity for the United States to hold Egypt’s feet to the fire.

To press Cairo, the United States should consider conditioning future aid on Cairo’s willingness to cooperate. This should include a demand for greater transparency and independent oversight to verify Egyptian claims about the tunnels. Congress ought to hold hearings to understand better Egypt’s role and its compliance as a U.S. ally. Despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s nine trips to the Middle East since the start of the war, there has been little clarity on how Egypt intends to fulfill its role as a mediator.

By refusing to acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security concerns, Egypt is undermining its own interests, prolonging the war in Gaza, and further destabilizing its relationship with Jerusalem. It is time for Egyptian leaders either to admit their inability to secure the border and seek help from Israel and America, or to risk being perceived as enablers of Hamas and its terrorist campaign.