Landmark
Outremont
Leafy, affluent enclave of stone duplexes where a near-invisible boundary once triggered a landmark religious-freedom court case.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to Outremont in Montreal follows a nearly invisible wire, a fishing line called an eruv strung along utility poles, letting observant Jews carry keys or push a stroller outdoors on the Sabbath. In 2000, city crews cut it down, setting Alex Werzberger, head of a coalition of Hasidic organizations, against the borough's own Jewish mayor, Jerome Unterberg, over whether public space could bend for a minority practice. Werzberger hired constitutional lawyer Julius Grey and took the fight to the Quebec Superior Court under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This audio guide was created using AI.