Rosh yeshiva of Torah Vodaath
Rabbi Gedalia Schorr and the 1962 Manhattan Eruv Ruling
Rabbi Gedalia Schorr's name appears in the rabbinic record associated with the 18 Sivan 5722 Manhattan eruv notice.
The public ruling of 5722
Rabbi Gedalia Schorr appears among the five leading Rabbonim named on the Agudath HaRabbonim ruling of 18 Sivan 5722. They prohibited reliance on the proposed Manhattan eruv and warned that carrying on its strength was a serious matter of chillul Shabbos.
The ruling answered a live communal question. Once an eruv is publicized, ordinary people carry without independently examining the city walls, bridges, roads, or halachic status of its streets. The Rabbonim therefore issued a clear public instruction rather than leaving the matter as an exchange among specialists.
A precedent for large-city eruvin
The Manhattan controversy became a major precedent because it brought the classical laws of reshus harabim and enclosure into the setting of a vast modern city. Later New York proclamations returned to the same ruling when eruv projects were proposed in Brooklyn and elsewhere.
Rabbi Schorr's place in the 5722 ruling joins his name to that foundational public decision. It is the collective psak, rather than an independent teshuva in his name, that bears directly on this subject.
The connection to Crown Heights
The Crown Heights Rabbonim later cited the rulings of the leading American and Canadian Rabbonim headed by Rav Moshe Feinstein when rejecting the neighborhood eruv. The Manhattan decision supplies that wider New York background.
The actual instruction for Crown Heights comes from its Beis Din: there is no eruv that may be relied upon, and carrying remains prohibited.