Could a mezuzah be part of Kamala Harris’ White House decoration? – The Forward

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff installs a mezuzah at the Vice President’s residence in Washington, DC in 2021. Courtesy of the White House

By Louis Keene, Unitha Cherry9 August 2024

The likely nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris as presidential candidate has the Democrats dreaming of historic dreams: First woman in the Oval Office. First Jewish First Gentleman. First… mezuzah for the White House?

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff hung a mezuzah – a decorative box containing a Bible text – in the entryway of the vice presidential residence after he and Harris moved in in 2021. And he hinted that he would do the same in the White House if his wife defeats former President Donald Trump in November.

“I’m just going to continue to live openly as a Jew, and maybe there will be a mezuzah in the White House, like there is in the vice president’s residence,” Emhoff said. said at an event with the Jewish Democratic Council of America on July 24.

But we still have questions. Would Emhoff take his mezuzah from the Vice President’s residence? Where would he hang it? What does Jewish law actually require? And would this really be the White House’s first mezuzah?

The Mezuzah of the Marine Observatory

The Torah instructs Jews to hang a mezuzah on their doorposts, which is considered both an aesthetic statement and, for many, a magical object. When a Jew experiences a streak of bad luck, a common instruction is to check the mezuzah’s scroll for imperfections.

When the second couple decided in 2021 to hang a mezuzah in the Vice President’s mansion on the grounds of the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, they couldn’t just pick something from Etsy. Instead, they commissioned Francesco Spagnolo, curator of the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Lifeto find the perfect totem for their new home.

Spagnolo said in an interview that he presented at least three options from the hundreds of mezuzot in the collection. Two of them were from India, and he thought they might resonate with Harris, who is of Indian descent. Another was a gift from Leah Rabin – the wife of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin – to Rabin’s English-speaking secretary, Alice Grossman. The connection to the vice president, Spagnolo said, is through “women in service.”

Emhoff and Harris chose the Rabin mezuzah, whose Art Nouveau sterling silver case bears a Hebrew blessing that translates as, “Blessed are you as you come, blessed are you as you go.”

“It reminds us of the ephemeral nature of political power,” Spagnolo said. “There is a sense of coming and going rather than permanent existence. So all of these meanings are embedded in this object.”

As for the scroll, the The Shema Prayer that goes in the mezuzah? Spagnolo bought it at a Judaica shop in the Bay Area.

Would a Jewish First Couple be obligated to hang a mezuzah in the White House?

Generally speaking, Halacha, According to Rabbi Hyim Shafner, head of the Kesher Israel Congregation, an Orthodox synagogue just over a mile from the White House, Israeli law requires Jews to place a mezuzah on every doorpost (except a bathroom) in any residence they plan to live in for at least 30 days.

Of course, the White House is more than just a residential building; its West Wing and East Wing are office buildings. But in the Executive Residence alone – this is the White House that you see on postcards and where the President’s family lives – There are 412 doors.

However, it is controversial whether Harris and Emhoff would be considered residents under Halacha and subject to the mezuzah requirement.

Rabbi Ari Zivotofsky, who writes about halacha for the Orthodox Union, seemed skeptical that Emhoff would be asked to provide even a single halacha.

He pointed out that the president neither buys nor leases the White House – it is technically owned by the National Park Service – and compared the Executive Residence to “a really fancy college dorm.”

According to Halacha, a resident of a dorm does not have the status of a homeowner or even a tenant—their dorm fees cover accommodation, not a specific room. Therefore, they are not obligated to display a mezuzah.

Zivotofsky pointed out that as Harris’ wife, Emhoff would be a guest in the White House not only of the National Park Service but also of the president herself – another degree of separation from ownership of the space. Therefore, he said, the Mitzvah, or commandment to place a mezuzah in the White House would be purely optional.

Shafner said the First Couple’s residence was irrelevant – and the Executive Residence was not unlike a dorm room, for which he strongly required a mezuzah – because the students would live and eat in the room for more than 30 days.

It sounds like Emhoff is determined to build such a structure in the President’s residence if he gets the chance. Can he do it? Has it been done before?

The short answer is yes, the president’s husband can do that. However, the White House Preservation Committee might suggest using double-sided tape instead of screws on the portico’s sandstone facade.

According to the White House Historical Association, while presidents and their families can make changes anywhere in the Executive Residence, they make most of them on the second floor—their private quarters—leaving the ground floor largely unchanged.

So a Harris-Emhoff mezuzah might be the first in the President’s residence, but possibly not in the White House overall. It depends on what you count as the White House.

We also found someone who hung a mezuzah in what could fairly be described as the White House complex during the Bush administration—but who is not Jewish himself: Jim Towey, former director of the White House Office of Faith and Community Initiatives under President George W. Bush.

Towey, who is Catholic, knew the tradition of Jewish roommates from his law school days. When he founded a nonprofit for the elderly in Tallahassee, he hung one in his office “as a reminder of God’s presence in the midst of my work supporting human dignity.”

When he got the job in Washington in 2002 and moved into the building next to Blair House – the historic guest house for presidential guests – installing a mezuzah in his office was a “no-brainer,” he said.

A fellow cleric from Miami, the late Rabbi Solomon Schiff, sent him a two-tone brown mezuzah with instructions on how to hang it—the mezuzah should be angled toward the inside of the room—but Towey couldn’t remember who had hung it.

“I remember getting some instructions about the angle,” Towey said.

He took it with him when he left, and now the mezuzah hangs in his office in Tallahassee. Would he consider his old office next to Blair House – which is just a few hundred yards from the White House entrance – part of the White House?

“It depends on how technical you get,” Towey said. “It’s about staffing for the president. So I was part of the Executive Office of the President, and that’s one of the White House offices. Mail that was sent to the White House came to me.”

Even though Emhoff’s mezuzah is only the first in the president’s residence, Shafner said Harris’ husband would be authorized to Subscribe Blessing to mark a new experience, along with the regular blessing for placing a mezuzah.

While he doesn’t believe it would be unnecessary, an optional mezuzah for a president or his spouse would still have an important benefit: Every time you walk past it, Zivotofsky said, paraphrasing the 12th-century Jewish sage Maimonides, “it reminds you that there is a higher power.”