A MERGER OF DOMAINS

A Merger of Domains is a landscape series about the tension between allowance and restriction found in two halakhic (Jewish law) prohibitions, driving and carrying outside of the home, that are major obstacles to attending synagogue for the Orthodox community in Los Angeles. Its subjects are the structures comprising an eruv (translation: a merger of domains), a ritualistic enclosure dating back to Roman Palestine that lifts the prohibition on carrying within its physical borders. The Orthodox community, spread over one hundred square miles of urban sprawl, requires some of the world’s largest eruvim, and the city’s automotive infrastructure – its overpasses, fences, and street lights linked by monofilament – offers natural eruv boundaries. Though freed from the house by eruvim, the prohibition on driving persists, so community members must walk a city whose long blocks are made to be driven. Thanks to Los Angeles’ automotive infrastructure, the Orthodox community is drawn together and yet is never further apart.

I have employed a compositing approach and magical realist aesthetic to relate the transformations taking place within an eruv on Shabbat – the unremarkable structures that determine whether a community enjoys its day of rest; the varied locations that, enclosed by eruvim, express the geography of the Orthodox population; the distances between places that become much longer on foot. Each photograph depicts a section of eruv like a Where’s Waldo; the walls, overpasses, and fences are drawn out by applications of light or, in the case of monofilament, one pixel white lines; cars, which disrupt a street’s true walking length, have been digitally removed. In documenting the infrastructure that brings the Orthodox community together yet pulls it apart, I hope to relate the degree to which our experience of the world around us, our connection to it, and our understanding of ourselves within it rely upon the commonplace things that help us leave the house.

Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + N Sepulveda Blvd.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + N Sepulveda Blvd.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + N Sepulveda Blvd. + Getty Center Dr.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

S Sepulveda Blvd. + Los Angeles National Cemetery

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + S Sepulveda Blvd.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + Cotner Ave.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + Cotner Ave. + Tennessee Ave.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + Pico Blvd.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + Pico Blvd.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-10 + Military Ave.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-10 + Westwood Ave.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv

I-10 + Motor Ave.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-10 + Motor Ave.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-10 + Robertson Blvd. 

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-10 + S Halm Ave.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

Fairfax Ave. + Electric Dr.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

Western Ave. + W 12th St.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

Western Ave. + Olympic Blvd.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

Western Ave. + Wilshire Blvd.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

Western Ave. + 5th St.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

Santa Monica Blvd. + N St. Andrews Pl.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

Santa Monica Blvd. + Vine St.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

N Highland Ave. + Pat Moore Way

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

U.S. 101 + Cahuenga Blvd.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

U.S. 101 + Cahuenga Blvd.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

U.S. 101 + Stansbury Ave.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

U.S. 101 + Coldwater Canyon Ave.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + Dickens St.

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Los Angeles Community Eruv 

I-405 + Skirball Center Dr.

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Valley Eruv  

CA 118 + I-5 + Sharp Ave.

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Valley Eruv  

CA 118 + I-5 + Sharp Ave.

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Valley Eruv  

I-5 + Sheldon St. + Arleta Ave.

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West Valley Eruv  

Hayvenhurst Ave. + Ventura Blvd. 

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West Valley Eruv  

Ventura Blvd. + Hayvenhurst Ave.

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West Valley Eruv  

Ventura Blvd. + Libbet Ave.

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West Valley Eruv  

Ventura Blvd. + Louise Ave.

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West Valley Eruv 

Nogales Dr. + Electrical Towers 

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West Valley Eruv 

Edleen Dr. + Electrical Towers

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West Valley Eruv 

Crebs Ave. + Canasta St.

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West Valley Eruv 

Lindley Ave. + Los Angeles River


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West Valley Eruv 

Oxnard St. + Sepulveda Basin Park

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West Valley Eruv 

Wish Ave. + Hatteras St.

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West Valley Eruv 

Burbank Blvd. + McLennan Ave.

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West Valley Eruv 

W Magnolia Blvd. + Hayvenhurst Ave.

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