(JEWISH GROUP) How can I live freely as a Jew in a world where strangers rip my mezuzah off my doorframe?
Twice, the mezuzah on my front door was ripped off.
The first time, I was shocked. The second time, I made a decision that still pains me. I did not put it back up.
This was before the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
That is the part I keep coming back to. The fear did not begin after the Hamas attacks. It was already there, intruding with the quiet calculation of whether a small Jewish symbol on my home made me less safe.
A mezuzah is not a political statement. It makes no argument about a government or a war. It is a sacred object, a marker of memory, a tiny declaration that says: Jews live here. I thought about that mezuzah again recently when the Anti-Defamation League released its annual audit showing that antisemitic physical assaults in the United States reached record highs in 2025. That increase reflects something many Jews already feel in daily life: the slow erosion of ease, the daily calculation of whether to speak up or stay quiet — things I have felt since the first time my mezuzah was violently torn off my doorframe.
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NOTE: This is not me. This is by Gayle Kirschenbaum. I haven't put my secondary door frame one up yet. Still waiting on a prayer scroll.