WEST RIDGE — The upper-floor units of this neighborhood's tallest buildings can offer incredible lake and cityscape views, but for some orthodox Jews, they also present a problem: how to get there on the Sabbath?
On the Sabbath (or "Shabbat"), a strict set of religious rules prohibit any form of work for the 24-hour period between sundown on Fridays and Saturday nights. That includes not being able to press buttons connected to electrical currents, such as on an elevator, during that time.
Lauri Rosenbloom, a real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Stark Real Estate, said in West Ridge — where most of the city's orthodox Jews live — it's common to get requests from Jews who only will want to move to units on the first few floors of a building to avoid having to climb too many stairs on the Sabbath.
But at the 15-story Winston Towers, at 7141 N. Kedzie Ave., there is an elevator that operates in an automatic mode called a Shabbat elevator. On the Sabbath, the elevators operates continuously and stops on every floor.
It's a concept that's been widely debated among Jewish leaders, some who say they are OK to use, while others argue it still violates Jewish law.
At Winston, a five building complex, about an hour before the Sabbath begins, a sign goes up in front of one of the three elevators inside the 7141 N. Kedzie Ave. building alerting residents the elevator will be operating automatically, Beverly Siegel, a resident in the building, said.
Siegel said the elevator is only in a few of the Winston Towers buildings and was first introduced in hers about seven or eight years ago.
Since then, she said she's seen it been frequently used and is considered an incentive for more Orthodox Jews to live in higher units.
"This is a very big part of it, is that there's this very big sort of social implication because ... how do you then invite friends over who are Sabbath observers to come over to your house for Shabbat dinner or Shabbat lunch?" Siegel said. "It's kind of hard to say to somebody, 'Well gee, why don't you just walk up eight flights of stairs then?'"
Rosenbloom agreed with Siegel and said the Shabbat elevator was a rare accommodation that opened up the real estate market further to observing Jews.
Another building featuring the elevators is The Royalton at 6800 N. California Ave., also in West Ridge and listed by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices KoeingRubloff Realty Group.
While other buildings in the city might run Sabbath elevators, owners sometimes don't advertise them out of fear they might run afoul of fair housing laws, which forbid marketing to followers of specific religions. However, the federal government has ruled that advertising the elevators isn't a problem.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
