California Bill Ensures the Right to Hang Mezuzahs

israelnationalnews

A bill to ensure the right of Californians to hang mezuzahs on their door frames is moving through the state legislature, and looks primed to pass in the coming months, The Jewish News of Northern California reported.

SB 652 bars landlords and condo associations from prohibiting “the display of religious items” of a certain size on doors and door frames. Known to some as the “mezuzah bill” — though it also has the support of secular organizations, as well as Catholic and Hindu groups — the bill follows complaints from Jewish renters and condo owners who were told to remove their mezuzahs because of a building or apartment complex policy.

The bill has the strong backing of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which last month sent a letter of support to the chair of the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee, Rep. Mark Stone.

“For millennia, Jews have posted mezuzahs on the entry doorframes of their homes in fulfillment of a religious obligation rooted in the Torah,” states the letter, signed by the ADL’s San Francisco-based state legislative director, Nancy Appel.