Mezuzah Campaign
in City

Six brightly colored vans, blaring "lively Jewish music" with Police Dept. permission, are traveling through New York neighborhoods as part of the Lubavitch Youth Organization's "Mezuzah Campaign."

"We consider these our tanks In the Jewish war against assimilation," said Rabbi Dovid Raskin, speaking from the ultra-orthodox Hassidic group's headquarters In Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

He said the "Mezuzah Campaign" was part of a worldwide effort called for by
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, spiritual leader of the international Lubavitch community.

Rabbi Schneerson, or the Lubavitcher Rebbe, as he is called, is urging Jews to observe five "mitzvot" (commandments) because of their "characteristic of bringing security and protection to the Jewish people in general, especially where It Is needed most, as in the Holy Land today."
He emphasized in particular the "mezuzah," the small scroll inscribed with two verses from Deuteronomy which is attached in a small case to the doorposts of some Jewish homes as a sign and reminder of their faith.
According to the Rebbe, a mezuzah is not "kosher" unless it is hand-printed on special parchment in special ink by a "duly-qualified" scribe. If a word or even part of a word is missing, it is no longer kosher.

In a speech last month, he said that orthodox rabbis in Israel had checked the mezuzahs of the families of the Israeli school children killed by Arab terrorists at Maalot and had found many of them not kosher. He stressed that the "deficiency" of the mezuzah did not "cause the tragedy," but that obeying the commandments can "guard, shield and save the Jewish people from the enemies who surround them. Like Wearing a Helmet

He compared observing the commandments to wearing a helmet into battle.

Schmuel Greisman spokesman for the mezuzah campaign, said the goal was to encourage all Jews to get kosher mezuzahs and to have them checked by a "duly-qualified" rabbi. He said he had been assured by City Hall that Mayor Beame had placed a mezuzah on the doorpost of Grade Mansion.

Kosher mezuzahs are available for $5, he said, in the Lubavitch Youth Organization vans. He said the campaign would go on indefinitely because, "when the Lubavitch Rebbe calls a campaign, it never stops."

(Source: By Lindsay Miller, for the New York Post, Monday, June, 1974)

See:
The 'case' of the
scandalous Mezuzah