A Checkpoint Is No Place for a Mezuzah

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A few weeks ago, I was traveling with a group of 35 American tourists, a Palestinian bus driver, and a Palestinian tour guide from Jenin (a Palestinian city in the West Bank) to Nazareth (a Palestinian city inside the Green Line). When we came to the Jalameh checkpoint, the soldiers pulled us over to an area for additional screening, where we joined tens of Palestinians, most of whom were Israeli citizens on their way home from shopping, visiting relatives, or working.
Checkpoint
What followed for the next fifteen minutes was a routine exercise in ethnic profiling, in which 20-year-old Jewish Israeli soldiers, armed with heavy artillery, are empowered to make decisions about who is or is not fit to pass. After taking the two Palestinians off the bus for interrogation, several more soldiers came onto the bus to check our passports. One soldier stood at the back of the bus, pointing his gun down toward one of the few people of color in our group, staring at him in creepy silence (not unlike the 44 seconds of silence that Netanyahu performed for the UN). When they finally asked him for his passport and saw that is was not American, they did not simply glance at it and return it to him, as they had done with the rest of the group. “Why?”, they asked him. Why was he traveling with a group of Americans, where had he been, what had he been doing, who had he stayed with, did he have family in Jenin. Eventually, they returned his passport to him, and told us to take all of our stuff and get off the bus to go through the metal detector.
Checkpoint GatesAs I approached the trailer that contained the metal detector and soldiers checking IDs, I saw a mezuzah posted on the entrance. My heart sank. At once, I felt shame, sadness, rage, and disgust. I explained to my fellow delegates that the mezuzah is a Jewish ritual object that contains a scroll on which the following words from the Torah are written:
“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thy house, and upon thy gates.” – Deuteronomy 6: 4-9
It is one of many objects intended to remind us of our love for God and to bring God’s presence into every space in which we reside.
A checkpoint is absolutely no place for a mezuzah.
MezuzahWhereas the checkpoint is a place which thrives off of and breeds a cycle of hatred, the mezuzah is an object whose purpose is to remind us to love. The presence of the mezuzah at the checkpoint is a stark manifestation of the exploitation of Jewish tradition that is used to justify institutionalized racism. As evidenced by the soldiers’ actions on our bus, the checkpoint functions as a piece of the complex matrix of policies and practices that value – and thus privilege – the lives of some human beings over others. The checkpoint is a place where people are empowered by their government and the silence of the international community to humiliate, harass, beat, and kill their fellow humans, utterly violating the foundational Jewish principle that every human being is created in the image of God.
That mezuzah did indeed serve as a reminder to me. It reminded me that many Palestinians only know Jewish rituals and practices as symbols of occupation and oppression. It reminded me that we have much work to do in rescuing Judaism, a religion grounded in love and justice, from being hijacked by Zionism, a political ideology that privileges the lives of Jews over non-Jews. It reminded me that my fight for justice must come from a place of love for humanity.
Tali Ruskin is an active member of Jewish Voice for Peace, and serves on the steering committee of the organization’s Boston chapter. She has spent a great deal of time traveling and living in Israel/Palestine, gaining a deep understanding of the politics, cultures, languages, and peoples. She holds a masters degree in public health and in social work from Boston University.

9 thoughts on “A Checkpoint Is No Place for a Mezuzah

  1. “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field…I’ll meet you there” -Rumi
    “Bestow your love even on your enemies…if you should touch their hearts – what do you think
    will happen?!” -Rumi
    “if we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    “we have within us deeper pristine dimensions that have never been wounded and never been
    traumatized” -Elizebeth Debold
    “can’t we all just get along?” -Rodney King
    Outrageous love and richest Shalom blessings for us all…melanie

  2. The author of this article fails to acknowledge the dramatic decrease in murderous acts of terrorism committed by Arabs from the West Bank due to the erection of checkpoints and walls. Additionally, the organization she represents is attempting to eliminate Israel entirely to replace it with another Judenrein Arab/Islamic.

  3. “If only [race/religion/group] did not [criminal act by some individuals] there would be no [official policy of discrimination against all members of race/religion/group].” We hear it all the time, but tend to see its irrationality only when it’s our own race, religion, or group that is targeted.

  4. There are plenty of Jewish believers who adhere and believe in what Judaism teaches , but Zionists/ Israelis has long highjacked the name of Judaism, and converted / used to their own ultimate goal and agenda. When will the rest of the good people , Jews or others are going to wake up and realize/ admit to the reality of this fact?

  5. I was with Tali at that checkpoint with the IFPB delegation and there is no mistake that racial profiling was used to single out one of the delegates that led to our group’s scrutiny and additional screening. When Tali shared that she saw the mezuzah at the checkpoint that night during our group’s meeting and that it was a very poignant moment for her as a Jew, I remembered. During our trip we passed through other checkpoints and I remember seeing the mezuzah as I passed through the metal detectors. There is no place for a religious symbol or object to be used in a public place that discriminates and abuses people because of their ethnicity. As a Christian, I can understand Tali’s dismay. How would I have felt if in a different time and another country, I had seen a crucifix at the same check point. Think about that for a moment and then reread her story.

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