Waterbury, CT – The city’s Orthodox Jewish community has completed constructing its ceremonial religious bathhouse, but a series of setbacks — ranging from bacterial contamination to licensing troubles — has delayed its opening.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The Yeshiva community built its mikvah — a small, rainwater-fed pool used for religious purification that is housed inside an unmarked raised ranch on Roseland Avenue — eight months ago, but has yet to get a certificate of occupancy from the city.
Initially, the Yeshiva had to delay the opening because the water inside the well that fed the pool tested positive for bacteria, said deputy health director Shane Lockwood. Strict rabbinical law prohibits using chemicals to kill the bacteria, making the situation trickier than usual.
But the city and the Yeshiva worked together to find a solution that would comply with both government and religious law. The Yeshiva agreed to install an ultraviolet light system — something rarely used in Connecticut, but sometimes used at mikvot around the world — that would kill the bacteria.
Lockwood said the Yeshiva hired people to figure out how to retrofit the mikvah building, which boasted an intricate piping system to carry the “living water” from well to pool properly, but another setback soon halted all activity.
The contractor the Yeshiva hired to drill its well doesn’t have a Connecticut license, Lockwood said. The contractor has a current New York license, and appears to have done fine work, but the city is unable to grant a certificate of occupancy for a well dug by an unlicensed driller, he said.
The city calls this licensing problem a temporary setback. Lockwood said the Yeshiva is helping the driller get his Connecticut well-drilling license, and once that’s done the city expects to grant the full certificate of occupancy to the mikvah building without further delay.
Hopefully, they will get their permits within several months and be allowed to open but its no big deal since there are many other mikvahs available in Connecticut.
I’m not familiar with the laws of mikvaot, but I asked my wife and she told me that the local mikveh waters are chlorinated.
what???!!!!
I live here and mikvah is open…
Worthy of note is that there has been a mikveh in Waterbury for a long time, but this a a much needed larger facility.
Once they have resolved these issues, I’d like to know whether they are going to make the mikvah ADA compliant so as to make it accessible to handicapped Jewish women, as well. So often the frum community acts as if we don’t exist.
So basically its about money. If he gets his license – ie. pays his licensing fee, then a drill he dug previously is all of a sudden ok.
Is this the same mkvah that the Satmer Rebbe, bentched last Yr. as reperted on VIN and YWN?
Dear Charlie Hall,
Thank you for clarifying the fact that there has been and still is a Kosher Mikva in use since 1970 also on Roseland Ave. At the synagogue across the street from the new and B”H much needed larger Mikva. I remember with pride its construction even before the completion of the synagogue in which it is housed. It was understood even then when some thought Waterbury was a wilderness that a community without a Mikva is sorely lacking.
I was there when the Mikva was built as was I there when the mikva was built in neighboring Bridgeport a few years earlier.
May we be zoche always to Taharas and Kedushas Yisroel,
Is this the mikvah that was donated by Reb Yisroel Goldberger from Kiryas Yoel ? I was there at the Grand opening (Chanukas Hamikvah)
My brother in law is in Waterbury and he told me there is already A Mikva there
An ultraviolet light sounds downright dangerous~
Is this the mikve built by r’ ysrual goldbergr from monroe ?
Is this the mikve built by r’ ysrual goldbergr from monroe ?
I believe there is also a beautiful mikvah in Baltimore with a lift.
thats why i dont understand why someone would move to Blue Ridge it seems like a break off from Waterbury