Mezuzah movement sweeps campus

Next, Rice will light its first large-scale menorah

For Rabbi Shmuli Slonim, “Do Jewish joyfully” is more than a slogan embroidered on his denim ballcap. It’s a way of life for the man who, along with wife Nechama, runs the Chabad House at Rice University, a home away from home for Jewish students that offers everything from Friday Shabbat dinners to mezuzah installations on request.

Jones College sophomore Adam Subel was one of the students who requested a mezuzah from Rice’s Chabad House. (Photo by Jeff Fitlow)

During a typical semester, Slonim puts up five to seven mezuzahs — cases containing a scroll inscribed with a passage from the Torah — in the doorways of Jewish students across campus. This semester, however, he’s installing more than ever. “For students,” he said, “it’s a sense of Jewish pride.”

When the semester began, seven students had asked for mezuzahs. Then came the Pittsburgh mass shooting, in which 11 people were killed at the Tree of Life synagogue.

“We’ve put up 14 so far,”Slonim said. “And scheduled to put up at least another 8 by next week.”

Now, students who weren’t interested in putting up a mezuzah suddenly feel they need one.

“After the shooting they felt like, ‘This is so important to my identity, I’m just going to  do it,’” Slonim said.

Mezuzah movement

Rice responded to the Oct. 27 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting with a candlelight vigil on Oct. 29 and an anti-Semitism teach-in on Nov. 5. In Pittsburgh, Chabad rabbis launched a campaign to try to get 1,100 mezuzahs up in doorways across the U.S.; Rice’s Chabad chapter, using social media and visits to residential colleges, aimed for 11, one for each of the victims.

Rabbi Shmuli Slonim runs Chabad with wife Nechama. (Photo courtesy Chabad at Rice)

Installing a mezuzah fulfills a “mitzvah,” or a biblical commandment. It also designates the home as Jewish. The current mezuzah movement, Slonim said, is yet another way of bringing light into the world at a time when it’s most needed. According to the latest FBI statistics, anti-Semitic hate crimes — already the most common religious hate crime in the U.S. – increased by 37 percent last year.

“With anti-Semitism on the rise, we do have to take security seriously,” Slonim said. “But going into hiding and being ashamed of our identity is not the answer. We must be proud to be Jewish and fight back with goodness and light.”

Jones College sophomore Adam Subel was one of the students who recently requested a mezuzah from Rice’s Chabad House, where he’s been a regular at Shabbat dinners since he attended Passover celebrations as a freshman. (The 20-minute walk from Jones to Chabad is a schlep, Subel said, so “I feel less guilty about eating a four-course meal.”)

At the beginning of the semester, Subel had briefly considered having a mezuzah hung outside his dorm room before the distraction of school set in. But after the shooting in Pittsburgh, Subel saw a post about the mezuzah movement and reached out to Slonim. Soon, Subel had a mezuzah mounted on his door frame.

Students were encouraged to write thank-you cards and offer other expressions of gratitude at the Mitzvah Marathon organized by Chabad earlier this year. (Photo by Chabad at Rice)

“I was happy to do that, especially because for me the important part of my Jewish identity isn’t going and praying – like, that’s not what resonates with me,” Subel said. “It’s my cultural identity that’s important and I’m really happy to share it.”

Rice, Subel said, also offers the kind of environment where he feels not only welcomed but encouraged to live his faith. It’s more than just the mezuzah, he said; there’s also the fact that the kosher meal plan arranged by Chabad is just as delicious as the serveries’ fare.

“When Rice does stuff like getting us good kosher meals, it reminds me that people care,” Subel said.

Menorah lighting

The semester will wrap up on a bright note starting Dec. 2, when Rice will celebrate the first night of Hanukkah — and its large, new menorah — with a lighting ceremony featuring President David Leebron. Standing 9 feet tall, the menorah will be the first of its kind on campus, residing in the Central Quad for the entire holiday season.

But on that first night, the menorah will be the centerpiece of a celebration in the Graduate Student Commons outside Valhalla. “It’s really exciting for us to have Hanukkah during the semester, because it really only happens every three years,” Slonim said. “We see it as an opportunity for the wider campus community to partake and really get a taste of Judaism.”

He means this literally, as plenty of latkes and sufganiyot — powdered, jelly-filled donuts — will be on offer alongside dreidel and menorah kits for students to take home. Leebron will light the menorah and a vocalist from the Shepherd School of Music will sing the traditional blessings. The Marching Owl Band will also play at the festivities.

“We’re excited to be celebrating Hanukkah with the wider Rice community,” said Nechama Slonim. “We look forward to a wonderful night of fun, unity and Jewish pride.”