Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of mezuzahs, small narrow cases containing a parchment (called a klaf) inscribed with the Shema prayer. The case is traditionally attached to the doorpost of a Jewish house.
Mezuzah
The Latest
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Fast Forward Montana Police Proudly Keep Mezuzah, A Year After Failed Nazi March
Last year, as neo-Nazis threatened to descend on Whitefish, Montana, with an armed march, the town’s police force nailed a mezuzah on a doorframe at their station — a gesture of solidarity with the town’s small Jewish population who had been on the receiving end of online harassment for weeks. Months later, it’s still up…
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News The Christian Mezuzah? Yup, That’s A Thing
(JTA) — It’s affixed upon the doorpost. It’s wooden, thin and rectangular, but with rounded corners. It’s meant to fulfill a biblical commandment. And it bears a verse from the Gospel of John about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That’s right: It’s a Christian mezuzah. Karen Goode calls her creation the Doorpost Blessing, and it…
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Fast Forward PHOTOS: Montana Police Nail Mezuzah on Station Door, Defying Neo-Nazis
The police force of Whitefish, Montana — the site of the neo-Nazi march that wasn’t — has just nailed a mezuzah on the door of their station in a sign of solidarity with the beleaguered Jewish community. During a group tour of Whitefish by Orthodox rabbis from the U.S. and Canada, Rabbi Adam Scheier, a…
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Culture Mezuzah from a Million Meals
Alexander Rapaport, Executive Director of the Masbia Soup Kitchen, has had a busy year. His soup kitchen, with sites in Flatbush, Coney Island, and Rego Park (Queens), recently overcame months of delays to open a new site in Boro Park. According to their website, they have also “had an almost 350% increase in meal distribution…
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Culture Excavating Poland’s Last Remaining Mezuzas From Before the Holocaust
Helena Czernek and Aleksander Prugar have been trekking around Poland both as artists and as archaeologists: They’re searching for traces of mezuzas on Jewish homes that were abandoned or destroyed during the Holocaust. For the artists’ project, “Mezuzah From This Home,” the duo first identifies what Prugar calls “marks of existence” on doorframes across the…
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Breaking News Boxer Manny Pacquiao ‘Loves the Jews,’ Has ‘Mezuzah on Every Door’
Boxer Manny Pacquiao may be looking to get the Tribe behind him as he heads into his fight of the century against Floyd Mayweather Jr. The Filipino fighter has visited Israel several times and speaks warmly of his relationship with Jews, promoter Bob Arum says in a new interview on the eve of the bout…
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Breaking News Paris Shop With Mezuzah Hit by Gunfire
For the third time in a week, bullet holes were discovered at a Jewish establishment in the Paris area. The latest incident was discovered on Friday by the owner of a printing shop in the French capital’s 19th arrondissement, the BNVCA watchdog on anti-Semitism reported on its website. “After the attacks opon Jewish schools and…
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The Schmooze Introducing the ‘Christooza’ — Yes, It’s a Cross Mezuzah.
Apparently, Christians have mezuzah-envy. Or so it would seem to one Henry Zabarsky, inventor of the “Christooza.” If you couldn’t guess from the name, it’s a portmanteau of Christian and Mezuzah, or Christooza. “I was visiting a client in Rockaway,” Zabarsky, a Jewish financial advisor from Queens, told the New York Post. “She’s very religious…
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