# Mezuzot on a Christian home **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 20, 2003, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807 "2003-07-20T23:11:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2022, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/41 "2022-09-07T21:52:35Z")
This exclusionary attitude is somewhat puzzling to me. Unlike **some** Christians, who are sure the Jews are going to Hell for not following Jesus, I thought Jews would be okay with a Gentile home with a mezuzah. After all, the Christians still worship God the Father, although as part of a package deal. Jesus Himself probably had a mezuzah at his door. He was a Jew. ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/42 "2022-09-08T01:33:28Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > Unlike **some** Christians, who are sure the Jews are going to Hell for not following Jesus, I thought Jews would be okay with a Gentile home with a mezuzah. To many Jews, gentiles using Jewish rituals can be seen as taking our Jewishness away. It’s a kind of blackface. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/43 "2022-09-08T01:35:43Z")
I don’t know if that’s the attitude- I imagine honestly that it’s more bemusement/confusion rather than hostility, in that they’re religiously required to do it, and Christians aren’t, and are doing it anyway. My point was more from the Christian point of view- in my view, if you’re going to lift someone else’s tradition, you have a supreme obligation to at least do your best to get it right, so don’t treat it flippantly. Realistically I doubt anyone’s really going to be all that offended if it’s done in good faith and done as correctly as you can manage. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/44 "2022-09-08T02:11:42Z")
I agree with this. It really put into words what I’m feeling. Remember the Kabalah fad of the 90’s? A debate can be had over who exactly is qualified to be practicing Kabalah. I think we can all agree that person is NOT Madonna. That was definitely a case of cultural appropriation. It’s not always cultural appropriation. OTTOMH My sister in law had a Jewish uncle. When he died, one of the possessions she kept was his tallis (prayer shawl). If she wore it as a fashion statement, it would be wrong on so many levels. But instead, she treats it respectfully and stores it with other keepsakes from beloved relatives. Add in the predatory and deceitful Jews For Jesus and this kind of thing usually leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/45 "2022-09-08T02:27:37Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > Jesus Himself probably had a mezuzah at his door. In what century does the tradition originate? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/46 "2022-09-08T02:36:32Z")
> How Old is the Mezuzah? > > According to tradition, Jewish people have been observing the [commandment of Mezuzah](http://judaica101.ajudaica.com/religious-articles/mezuzah/) since it was given at Mount Sinai in 1312 BCE. It is debatable whether they were used during the forty-year sojourn in the desert, seeing as the Israelites lived in temporary huts which according to Jewish law do not require Mezuzot. What can be assumed is that the Mezuzah became a permanent fixture in Jewish homes from the time when the Jewish people settled the land of Canaan in 1272-1258 BCE. > > What is the earliest report of Mezuzah observance? > > One of the earliest reports of Mezuzah observance is in the writings of Josephus in his “Antiquities of the Jews.” He reports that already in his time the Mezuzah was considered an ancient practice among the Jews. > > Many ancient Mezuzahs that date back to the Second Temple Period have also been discovered in the Dead Sea region. > … > **[History & Customs Related to the Mezuzah - aJudaica Blog - Life in...](https://blog.ajudaica.com/archives/249)** > > The Word Mezuzah The Hebrew word Mezuzah literally means “a doorpost.” The source of the word is not entirely clear. Traditionally, the word has been associated with the Hebrew root, “zuz,” meaning, “to move.” This word can be further traced back to... ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/47 "2022-09-08T10:50:57Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > It’s not always cultural appropriation. OTTOMH My sister in law had a Jewish uncle. When he died, one of the possessions she kept was his tallis (prayer shawl). If she wore it as a fashion statement, it would be wrong on so many levels. But instead, she treats it respectfully and stores it with other keepsakes from beloved relatives. Exactly. You want to attend my Passover Seder? No problem, you are always welcome. You want to have your own Christian Seder? That’s appropriation. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/48 "2022-09-08T11:09:56Z")
I guess I take a slightly more cynical long view. A gentile who takes delight in Jewish customs is - hopefully - less likely to take part in the pogroms when they come back around. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/49 "2022-09-08T11:56:12Z")
I don’t have much of an opinion either way, but speaking as a Christian, I just wanted to point out that there are Christian rites of blessing a house as well. At least in Catholicism, which has little rites for every occasion. When I moved into our new home, it had been vacant for a couple of years, and neglected, in spirit at least, for several years before that. It was dusty, dirty, and felt almost abandoned, except for a lot of bugs taking advantage of it not being frozen (it was February in New England). It’s an ancient house, for the US anyway). It felt so mournful that I went around with incense to every room and recited a prayer of blessing and greeting. The house appeared to feel comforted after that. ---
**Author:** ![peedin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peedin/32/14095_2.png) [@peedin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peedin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/50 "2022-09-08T12:11:27Z")
I didn’t notice that the original post was 19 years old. I am one who thinks cultural appropriation is an overused terms but that was my first thought on reading the original post. I’m stone cold Protestant BTW. Most of my friends growing up were Catholic and many homes had a little bowl of holy water near the door. I’m guessing that was used for blessings/prayers. Same principle. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/51 "2022-09-08T12:42:02Z")
Yeah, growing up Catholic in a Catholic neighborhood, it was not too unusual to have a priest bless a new house. I’ve never seen the bowl of water thing, though. ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/52 "2022-09-08T12:47:28Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > I guess I take a slightly more cynical long view. A gentile who takes delight in Jewish customs is - hopefully - less likely to take part in the pogroms when they come back around. There has been a resurgence of Klezmer music in Poland over the last few years. Unfortunately it has not translated into an appreciation of actual Jews. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/53 "2022-09-08T13:05:06Z")
> [@peedin](#): > > I didn’t notice that the original post was 19 years old. I am one who thinks cultural appropriation is an overused terms but that was my first thought on reading the original post. I’m stone cold Protestant BTW. Most of my friends growing up were Catholic and many homes had a little bowl of holy water near the door. I’m guessing that was used for blessings/prayers. Same principle. Me, neither, and i also thought of cultural appropriation. And i find that even when it’s my culture being appropriated, I’m mostly in favor of it. I thought what the op ended up doing, making their own mezuzah with a prayer that was meaningful to them (and that wasn’t a kosher scroll written by an Orthodox Jew for use by Jews) and using it in a respectful manner that was meaningful to them was perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/54 "2022-09-08T13:14:06Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > (and that wasn’t a kosher scroll written by an Orthodox Jew for use by Jews) I have no visceral reaction to this thought, but if I think about a gentile displaying and using a _Torah_, I feel very strongly indeed. So I think, logically, I have to concede the point. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/55 "2022-09-08T13:37:10Z")
My mom was jewish, my dad was protestant or presbyterian. I grew up in a jewish neighborhood. We had a xmas tree. Santa came to our home. We enjoyed lox, bagels, chicken livers, gefilte fish. My mom had a menorah that she would light, but it was her thing. We didn’t do church/synagogue. Of course our house had a mezuzah, every house had them. I vaguely remember it being explained to me. It was there because it was simpler to leave it than take it down. At the house I owned before moving in with my gf I had a large, garish crucifix hanging just inside my front door. When friends, knowing I was an atheist, saw it they were puzzled. I explained it was a Pascal’s Wager regarding vampires. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/56 "2022-09-08T14:20:20Z")
I would love it if the OP would come into this thread and tell us what he did and if he still lives in the house. @brianmelendez ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/57 "2022-09-08T14:24:13Z")
The OP hasn’t logged in for nearly a year. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/58 "2022-09-08T14:34:02Z")
> [@IzzyR](#): > > As to your affixing one, perhaps I can make a suggestion. A mezuzah is specially written by hand with quill on parchment, with proscribed intentions, by a trained scribe, and following very set religious laws. The reason for these have to do with Jewish religious requirements. From your perspective, they add nothing except to the price. > > Why not just type up your own mezuzah and install it exactly as one might a Jewish one? The meaning from your perspective will be exactly the same, but you will not be using a Jewish religious object. This was my thought as well. You can certainly put those verses on your doorposts, but consider doing it in, say, English and in a format visibly different than a mezuzah. ETA: another person who did not realize this was a zombie. ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/59 "2022-09-08T15:00:35Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > I would love it if the OP would come into this thread and tell us what he did and if he still lives in the house. @brianmelendez kayT, thank you for tagging me – I had no idea that this post had been resurrected. What I did was what I wrote in my last post in July 2003, written about three weeks before I moved in: > [@brianmelendez](#): > > I have decided that I will use a symbol that honors the scriptural text without encroaching upon the peculiarly Jewish nature of the mezuzah. Rather than using a scroll with the text printed in Hebrew inside a mezuzah case, I am ordering a brass plaque, with the same text in English, which I will affix to the doorpost about where the mezuzah would go if I were affixing one. I held a moving-in ceremony, which included (among several other, unrelated rituals) publicly affixing the brass plaque to the doorpost, accompanied by my Jewish best friend explaining what a mezuzah was and how the Jewish tradition inspired the plaque that I was using. The original brass plaque got a bit weatherbeaten after about a decade, so I replaced it with another plaque that was identical except for being made of a more durable substance. I still live in the house. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2022, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807/60 "2022-09-08T15:04:19Z")
@brianmelendez , welcome back and thanks for the update. Hope you stick around! I’m not Jewish (or Christian, anymore), so don’t really have a dog in this fight, but it sounds like you handled the whole thing with sensitivity and grace. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mezuzot-on-a-christian-home/189807.md?page=4)