September 25, 2024

To Mezuzah (מְזוּזָה) or NotYourzuzah?

A Short Interlude

"Solitude is sublime, company is beautiful." Hannah Arendt

Yesterday, I saw a tweet from Julia Ioffe asking non Jewish people to not put up a Mezuzah: “This is not a show of solidarity but of weird and continued appropriation of our culture and religion.” Julia’s tweet was in response to Patricia Heaton’s tweet calling to “join [her] in the #MyzuzahYourzuzah campaign to show solidarity with your Jewish friends and neighbors, fight antisemitism and bless your household.” Her tweet included a video of her putting up a mezuzah on her doorframe and providing detailed instructions on where to buy one (I wonder if she has a sponsorship agreement with the website) and join the crusade. Considering my stated challenges with my Jewish identity and heritage, I did not put too much thought into this at that time, simply “liking” Julia’s tweet out of my solidarity.

Later I saw a similar tweet from Kathie Lee Gifford retweeted by someone who stated that: “The mezuzah recalls the Exodus from Egypt, when lamb's blood smeared on the doorpost "identified" Jewish homes that God passed over. Moses also told non Jewish allies to do this too!” I still mainly shrugged my shoulders even though in my own limited knowledge of Judaic tradition I knew that the statement was false. Then, I saw a series of tweets from Yehuda Kurtzer, President of Shalom Hartman Institute, which ostensibly is a Jewish research and education institute based in Jerusalem, that offers pluralistic Jewish thought and education to scholars, rabbis, educators, and Jewish community leaders in Israel and North America that said:

“The very online and manufactured outrage about a non-Jew putting up a mezuzah to support Jews is total nonsense. We have cherished in our history when “righteous gentiles” have acted in solidarity with us in difficult times; And we as American Jews participate in Christian rituals all the time without fear of “appropriation.” We need to be much more concerned about the leveraging of “Jewish values” by non-Jews against Jews in accusing us of hypocrisy when they confront our commitments and the fact that a former (and hopefully indefinitely former) president publicly threatens that Jews should be blamed if he loses an election. Well-meaning gestures by non-Jews towards should be simply welcomed and thanked. We need to stop being embarrassed as American Jews about our stuff, or protective of our particularism. And frankly, if the prevalence of Mezuzot in public reduces the increasing amount of vandalism against Jewish spaces, that’s a good outcome too.”

This is when I went back to Julia’s tweet and decided it is time for me to form my own opinion on the matter.

A mezuzah is a scroll containing inscribed verses in which the use of a mezuzah is commanded (Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21) which is attached to the doorposts of a Jewish home. While I may never have been a proper Jew or even religious, we’ve had a mezuzah on our door since the day we bought our first house. I agree with Yehuda that the former president is publicly threatening Jews and really every non-white minority in the country. In his world, our children will have to hide their Judaism to be safe in America. I also agree that if my fellow Americans want to show solidarity it is welcomed.

But clearly there are different perspectives on this. I get Julia's and I disagree with Yehuda’s. Chabad, for example states that:

“Not Just a Symbol

A mezuzah is one of the most known Jewish symbols. When we see a mezuzah on a doorway, we know that Jews live there. Yet the mezuzah is not merely a symbol, it’s a mitzvah, a commandment from G‑d. And the best way to fulfill this commandment is by following the exact instructions.

The biblical commandment is specifically directed to Jewish people to place a mezuzah on their doorposts. So the correct way to fulfill this mitzvah is by following the details and keeping it as it was meant to be.

Jewish law specifically deals with this question and rules that a mezuzah should only be placed on the doorpost of a Jewish home.”

It's not about cultural appropriation, though clearly, for a non-Jew to display mezuzah is in fact textbook example of cultural appropriation. Look at it from this perspective. There are several places in the Torah where a large amount of mitzvahs are specified only for Israelis/Jews or only for Israelis/Jews. This is especially the case when one looks at how they specifically to be done in a particular way that were given in the written and oral Torah.

That being said, the question for a person who is not Jewish would be "Beyond what is specified in the 7 mitvoth/Noachide laws, what is the goal of doing this particular thing that appears to be specific to the Israeli/Jewish nation? Also, what is the goal of doing it the way Jews do it?" This is the question that a person should ask themselves when going beyond the 7 mitzvahs. They should only do so in a way that is clearly not causing them to think they are taking on mitzvahs as Jews do it or that they are creating a religion with it. In the end, there are better ways to show your support because of how religious this symbol is. Appropriating a sacred religious practice is not one of them. If you chose to do this, having been educated about the significance, it's not support.

That being said, I know the adjective “Orwellian” gets overused but the perspective from Yehuda above is a prime example of how things take place and should be called out as Orwellian - “American Jews participate in Christian rituals all the time without fear” is a blatant admission of two things:

• The devil’s bargain American Jews struck with the institutionalized christian white supremacy dogma whereas practically overnight we became “white” for convenience purposes.

• The idolatry of Zionism that gradually took over the central place in Jewish tradition replacing Judaism as the connecting glue holding the diasporic Jewish communities together.

Recently I read a lefty Jewish journalist say that the US is “invested in Jewish safety.” I strongly disagree and it should not even be an argument. The US is invested in Jewish *whiteness* in the form of security at temples & compulsory Zionism, which is very different from and is antithetical to “Jewish safety.” This almost nonchalant erasure of sacred rituals only makes it easier to target and dehumanize a group with blood libel, which we are literally seeing in our political discourse today.

Trump constantly tells Jewish people he is entitled to their reverence and support; he's expressed repeatedly the idea that Jewish people are obsessed with money; he suggests Jewish people are not really Americans. I already wrote why Jews should unequivocally reject Trump, the overblown but quite real antisemitism on the left doesn’t compare to his Nazi rhetoric accepted by the right.

There is a very good chance that this short essay will get me labeled as “self-hating” Jew yet again, but I wholeheartedly agree with Kol Boded saying: “If you are a Zionist, you must support an independent and fully equal Palestinian state. Any other position is morally untenable.” That’s not what Zionism has become though, it grew into the idea that an apartheid state is the sole purpose and the only symbol of Jewish people which is beyond criticism. All the while replacing the millenia old traditions in the US by whitewashing the meaning of being Jewish, trading limited acceptable perceived as inclusion for the betrayal of what actually makes Jewish people, well Jewish.

As stated, I am not religious. Quite the opposite, I view religion as the tool of oppression and exploitation of people throughout history. But the cultural assimilation of Jews in the US is the antithetic to the the idea of what being Jewish is and should be. Secular Jews celebrating Christmas, going golfing on Shabbat and voting white christian nationalist into power is exactly how you end up with another Holocaust.

I may not follow the sacred contract given to Jews by God, as I view God quite differently than any Abrahamic religions, but I can still respect and revere the traditions even if I do not follow them to the letter. Trading the very nature of what makes you Jewish for support and acceptance is exactly how you end up with Nazis claiming to be best friend of Jews.

Never again.