The Jewish Press newspaper reported that week on a federal court which upheld a condo’s ban on mezuzot. Michelle Nevada at Israel Jewish News blog correctly points out that it is very difficult for non-Jews to understand our laws and customs. They have no “frame of reference,” as she says.

She writes, “No other religion has a requirement to disengage from the world for 25 hours a week, not answering the phone or flipping a light switch; no other religion in the world goes beyond what you eat and concerns itself with your dishes and pots and pans and makes you wait amidst different types of food; no other religion in the world requires the hanging of a mezuzah.”

Her post reminds me of the Country Yossi song–”Because I’m a Jew, I do that too.”

However. at the end of her post she writes, “A very sad day. At least there are Jews on the Supreme Court whether it gets that far . . .” Unfortunately, whether it gets to the Supreme Court, the Jewish justices are likely to be the most against it. In many of these cases, it is the secular Jews who most often have a problem with Jews’ public displays of religion. In fact, my money is on Justice William Bauer–one of the two to rule against the mezuzah–being Jewish.

From the eruv in Tenafly to the classical battles in towns from Lawrence to Beachwood, Ohio, as written about in “Jew vs. Jew,” secular Jews have taken the most offense to the public practice of Judaism by their Orthodox neighbors.

Original post by Shlomo Greenwald