Thousands of non-Jews order mezuzahs after a pro-Israel Christian puts one on her door in solidarity

A Jewish nonprofit that distributes mezuzahs has been deluged with thousands of requests after a Catholic sitcom actress launched a campaign encouraging people to put up the ritual object in support of the Jewish community.

Patricia Heaton, known for her starring roles in “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “The Middle,” announced the campaign Monday as part of her nonprofit, The October 7 Coalition, a Christian group founded after the Hamas attack in Israel last year to support the Jewish community and Israel.

“As we head toward the one year anniversary of October 7th, I ask that you please join me in the #MyzuzahYourzuzah campaign to show solidarity with your Jewish friends and neighbors, fight antisemitism and bless your household,” says Heaton’s post, accompanied by a video of her affixing a mezuzah on the right side of her doorpost in the manner traditionally practiced by Jews. 

The text then gives instructions for how to order a mezuzah and post a video about the campaign before Oct. 7. The post directs readers to MyZuzah, a Jewish nonprofit that aims to put a mezuzah — an encased piece of rolled-up parchment bearing the first two paragraphs of the “Shema” prayer — on every Jewish home in the world, as Jewish law prescribes. 

Alex Shapero, MyZuzah’s program director, told JTA that since the campaign launched on Monday, the organization has already fielded thousands of requests. Most of the inquiries from people who aren’t Jewish, he said, were for the case only, not for the scroll that goes inside, which is called a “klaf.”

“When a non-Jew comes to us, we encourage them or invite them to purchase a mezuzah case and do that. That shows support,” Shapero said. “If they want to also purchase a kosher klaf, they’re welcome to — but we are really clear, explicitly explain to them that it’s an obligation for Jews only.”

Proceeds from the sale of mezuzahs on the MyZuzah website, which partners with various Judaica artists and Jewish nonprofits, go back into the organization’s subsidies for providing free mezuzahs and scrolls for eligible families.

Heaton did not respond to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s request for comment. But in an interview on Fox and Friends Monday morning, Heaton called the campaign “kind of a Spartacus moment,” a reference to the 1960 Stanley Kubrick film “Spartacus” — starring Kirk Douglas, a Jewish actor — in which the hero’s countrymen all identify as him in order to protect his identity.

“Jewish students at college campuses have had a mezuzah on their door, and they’ve been ripped off, they’ve been vandalized, they’ve been found smashed,” she said. “And I think we have to stand up for the Jewish people and for their right to exist, their right to be Jewish and practice their faith.”

The campaign drew immediate reactions from Jews on social media — some scathing, others gently discouraging and a few supportive.

“For the actual love of God, do not misappropriate any more of the Jewish people’s rituals, traditions, & sacred objects,” tweeted Emily Hauser, a Chicago-area communications consultant. “This is so deeply offensive, this American-Israeli Jew first thought it must be a parody. Don’t. Do. This.”

Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, a Chabad rabbi in Kentucky who has personally experienced antisemitism, tweeted, “This is not the move. There are far better ways for allies to show their support.” Chabad.org tweeted its own article discouraging solidarity mezuzahs shortly after Heaton’s announcement.

A few Jewish voices praised Heaton. “I think this is a really beautiful gesture of solidarity, and the Jews dunking on this don’t understand how urgently we need our friends and allies to speak up,” tweeted Eylon Levy, the former Israeli government spokesman.

Heaton’s campaign is the latest effort by non-Jews to employ Jewish ritual objects in a show of solidarity with Jews facing antisemitism.

A famous example was the 1993 “Not in Our Town” campaign in Billings, Montana, in which residents pasted images of a menorah in their windows in response to a spate of white supremacist hate and violence against their Native American, Jewish and Black neighbors. (The residents did not use real menorahs, only pictures distributed in the local newspaper.)

At Indiana University in 2022, following multiple incidents where in total at least a dozen mezuzahs were torn off dorm doorposts, the school’s Hillel distributed empty mezuzah cases inscribed with the words, “I stand with my Jewish friends” to non-Jewish students.

And last year in California, after an incident where a Jewish family’s home was broken into after the assailant had asked them about their mezuzah, some neighbors offered to hang up mezuzahs in solidarity.

“To me it felt like the precursor to ‘We’ll hide you when you’re in our attic,’” Menachem Silverstein, a local Orthodox comedian and rabbi, told JTA at the time. (He also compared the offer to a Spartacus moment.)

The MyZuzah, YourZuzah campaign also comes amid concerns about the use of Jewish objects by Messianiacs, or people who adopt a range of Jewish practices but hold the core Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus, which Jewish communities uniformly reject. Multiple companies have offered Christian versions of mezuzahs that look remarkably similar to the Jewish ritual object.

For Hannah Lebovits, assistant director at the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, Jewish material culture is one that should be left to Jewish audiences alone.

“Many Jewish perspectives and values are appealing to universal audiences,” Lebovits wrote on X Monday. “But we are also allowed to embrace and celebrate our particularism [especially] in our material culture — a sefer torah, a mezuzah, a star of David, a set of tefillin — they’re allowed to be meaningful to us alone.”

Shapero said he does not share concerns about non-Jews culturally appropriating a Jewish ritual object.

“There’s no issue with a non-Jew having a mezuzah scroll on their door,” he said. “The only concern is whether or not they treat it with respect. And the folks are coming to us clearly with, kind of, love and intending to be very respectful and support the community. So that’s a reassuring piece there.”

But he added that if non-Jews choose to buy a klaf in addition to a case, “The klaf itself, because of its very nature, with the psukim [verses] and with God and everything — it must be treated with respect and held in that regard, as a Jewish practice. That is not to be taken separately.”

In the announcement video, Heaton wears a dog tag emblazoned on one side with a Star of David reading “Am Yisrael Chai” and “Bring Them Home Now” on the other. The symbol has taken on a new meaning of solidarity, primarily for American Jews, since the days following the outbreak of the war. 

Apart from the mezuzah campaign, Heaton’s nonprofit also hosts unity dinners between Christians and Jews and has posted videos of conversations with Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy. Heaton also makes appearances and speaks at pro-Israel rallies.

For Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, the debate over whether non-Jews can or should put up mezuzahs distracts from more pressing concerns about Jewish security.

“The very online and manufactured outrage about a non-Jew putting up a mezuzah to support Jews is total nonsense,” he tweeted. “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,” Kurtzer continued, referring to recent comments by Donald Trump. “Well-meaning gestures by non-Jews towards should be simply welcomed and thanked.”

The California rabbi, Silverstein, also told JTA on Tuesday that he was heartened by the new campaign.

“I think that people standing in solidarity and people willing to hide, help, kind of protect their [fellow] Jews by putting up mezuzah so everyone blends in, I think is a really beautiful thing,” he said. “Putting a mezuzah on your door, it definitely puts a target on your door.”