amuletsMezuzahמְזוּזָה

Jewish law does not class a mezuzah as an amulet, and the atlas has to say so before it says anything else. It is a mitzvah, a commandment, one of the 613, and its stated purpose in the verses that command it is educational: to keep God's words in front of a person, taught to their children, spoken of at home and on the road.

The objection is on the record and it is old. Maimonides, in the Mishneh Torah, allows writing Shaddai on the outside of a mezuzah and then draws the line hard: "Those, however, who write the names of angels, other sacred names, verses, or forms, on the inside [of a mezuzah] are among those who do not have a portion in the world to come." And the reason: "Not only do these fools nullify the mitzvah, but furthermore, they make from a great mitzvah ... a talisman for their own benefit." A commandment converted into a charm stops being a commandment.

So why is it in an atlas of amulets? Because people have in fact used it that way, in writing, for a very long time, and that argument is itself documented. The cited account states that in later generations the mezuzah began to be interpreted as an apotropaic device protecting the house from evil, and names early rabbinic sources that explicitly witness a belief in an anti-demonic function: Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 4:12, Babylonian Talmud Bava Metziya 102a, Babylonian Talmud Pesahim 113b. It also notes that some Jewish sources construe the mezuzah as a guard against divine anger and that others vehemently reject that reading. In the 1970s, after a series of attacks at Ma'alot, Chabad began a campaign to have mezuzot systematically checked, on the assumption that keeping the mitzvot would guarantee personal safety. And sociological research summarised in the cited article reports that about three-quarters of adults in Israel hold that the mezuzah guards their houses.

That is the record this atlas prints: a tradition that calls it a commandment, a legal authority who wrote down exactly why calling it a talisman degrades it, and a large documented practice of treating it as protection anyway. The atlas does not settle it.

Karaite Jews read the Deuteronomy verse as metaphor and traditionally use no mezuzah, putting up instead a small plaque shaped like the two Tablets of the Law with the Ten Commandments — though in Israel many Karaites also fix a mezuzah so as not to make other Jews uncomfortable. Samaritans read the commandment as displaying any selected text from the Samaritan Torah, on marble, wood, parchment or good paper, above the door or on a prominent wall inside; stone plaques of the Ten Commandments from the Byzantine and early Muslim periods survive, and are in the Israel Museum. For Samaritans, the more of them in a house, the better.

Written on klaf, parchment, by a sofer stam — a scribe trained both in the relevant laws and in Ktav Stam calligraphy — in indelible black ink, with a quill made from a feather or, rarely now, a reed. On the back it is customary to write Shaddai, a name of God which also reads as an acronym for Shomer Daltot Yisrael, Guardian of Israel's doors; many cases carry the letter shin for the same reason. Ashkenazi custom adds a second line that is a one-letter Caesar shift of three words of the Shema, written on the back opposite the words it shifts; Sephardi custom, following the Shulchan Aruch and the Rambam, leaves it out. It is held against the spot, a blessing is said, and it is fixed. Where the doorway is wide enough, many Ashkenazim tilt it — a compromise proposed by Rabbi Jacob ben Asher between Rashi, who held it should be vertical, and his grandson Rabbeinu Tam, who held it horizontal. Most Sephardi, Mizrahi and other non-Ashkenazi Jews fix it vertically. Many observant Jews have a scribe check the parchments for tears or faded letters at least twice every seven years. Torn or damaged wording invalidates it.

Contested in American housing law, repeatedly, since 2001. A condominium association at Shoreline Towers in Chicago banned objects outside unit doors and management removed tenants' hallway mezuzot; complaints went to the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, the Illinois Attorney General and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Alderman Burton Natarus drafted a city ordinance making it illegal to prohibit a religious sign, symbol or relic on a door, doorpost or entrance; it passed that December with a maximum $500 fine, the first such legislation in North America. A federal judge found in 2006 that the rule did not violate the Federal Fair Housing Act, the district court upheld that in 2008, the Seventh Circuit reversed in 2009, and the disputes settled confidentially in 2011. Illinois amended its Condominium Property Act in 2006, effective 1 January 2007; Florida followed in 2008 after a Fort Lauderdale case; Texas passed HB1278 in June 2011 after a Houston couple lost in federal court in 2008. A national bill introduced by Congressman Jerrold Nadler in 2008 never became law.