ABSTRACT
By the 1940s and 1950s, life in the suburbs had become an alluring idea, even a crucial component of one's identity to British Jews, was considered to be a topographical commodity worth fighting for. By the mid-twentieth century, North London suburbs had become intrinsically linked with their Jewish residents-a spatial association to which some Jews were sensitive. Hence the appeal of the suburbs for so many British Jews seems to have been bound up in their perceived exclusivity. The creation of an eruv around a Jewish settlement is an ancient ritual practice first textually evidenced in the Mishnah. In modern times, eruvim have been established in cities across the Western world, and in Israel an eruv encircles virtually every town. Thus, the eruv was paradoxically depicted as a space of restriction and a space through which Jews sought to liberate themselves not from the confines of Sabbath regulations but from the demands of the wider society in which they lived.
