From Harvard to Claremont: A Powerful Display of Jewish Pride

Left: Students at Claremont College | Right: Students at Harvard University with their newly affixed Mezuzahs

As a freshman at Harvard, Sarah Silverman was stunned to discover that her newly affixed mezuzah was missing from her dorm room doorpost.

“I noticed something was gone,” she recalled. “In the place where my mezuzah had been so tightly secured, only a bit of sticky adhesive remained.”

Her heart sank. After she and her roommate swept the entire dorm floor in search of it, the morning’s excitement turned to an awful anxiety. The mezuzah was nowhere to be found.

An investigation was opened. A detective came to take fingerprints, and eventually, the mezuzah was discovered two doors down, tucked into the wall across the hall.

But while the incident was unsettling, the response from Harvard’s Jewish community was deeply heartening. More than a dozen Jewish faculty at Harvard Business School placed mezuzahs on their office doors in a coordinated show of solidarity.

The initiative — led by HBS professor Jeffrey Bussgang and supported by Harvard Chabad and Hillel — was directly inspired by Silverman’s experience.

“When I read the news about what happened to Sarah Silverman, I wanted to take action,” Bussgang said. “I felt it was important for Jewish students, faculty, and staff on campus to feel a strong sense of belonging and inclusion.”

Silverman, though shaken by the disappearance, said she was moved by the outpouring of support. “Although I had a rather traumatic start to my experience at Harvard, I am happy that good has come out of it with initiatives starting to increase Jewish pride and connection by putting up mezuzahs.”

Working with his wife, Lynda Bussgang — a Harvard Hillel board member — Bussgang personally distributed mezuzahs to faculty, staff, and students, transforming a moment of vulnerability into a public declaration of Jewish identity.

From Harvard to Claremont

At Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, senior Bryan Turkel discovered that the mezuzah on his dorm room doorframe had been torn down. College officials, including President Hiram Chodosh and the dean of students, condemned the act.

But for Turkel’s friend, Joshua Naon, a letter of condemnation wasn’t enough. “This was clear targeting and a hate crime,” Naon said. Determined to respond with strength, he contacted Andrew Borans, executive director of the international Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), with a bold idea:

“I want each brother to have the ability to put up a mezuzah. If anyone tries to rip one down, we will put 30 more up.”

Borans reached out to Chabad on Campus International, which partnered with Rabbi Yossi Matusof, the Chabad emissary to the Claremont Colleges. Within 24 hours, 30 mezuzahs — one for every Jewish fraternity brother — arrived on campus.

“Where there may have been only one or two mezuzahs before, now every student has one,” Borans said. “That’s the best payback you can have.”

The Mezuzah’s Eternal Message

This week’s Torah portion recalls the mitzvah of affixing a mezuzah:

“And you shall inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 11:20).

The mezuzah proclaims that all within the home is dedicated to a higher purpose, and that G-d’s presence and protection extend to our going out as well as our coming in. It transforms our homes — and by extension, our lives — into spaces infused with Divine awareness.

Our sages teach that the mezuzah has the unique quality of protecting the inhabitants of a home, whether they are inside or outside. Beyond physical protection, it shields us spiritually from the pull of materialism.

Maimonides writes: “Whenever one enters or leaves a home with the mezuzah on the doorpost, he will be confronted with the Declaration of G-d's Unity, blessed be His holy name; and will remember the love due to G-d, and will be aroused from his slumbers and his foolish absorption in temporal vanities.”

Visibility as Strength

In a time of rising antisemitism and hostility toward Israel, the temptation may be to hide our Jewish identity. But history has shown that retreating in the face of hate has never been the winning strategy. The answer is not to take down our mezuzahs — it is to put up more.

By ensuring that every Jewish home and workplace has a kosher mezuzah, and by helping friends and neighbors affix their own, we affirm our identity with pride and resilience.

May our mezuzot protect us, our homes, and our soldiers in Israel. May we merit the safe return of all hostages, and the day when we join together in our true homeland, the land of Israel, with the coming of Moshiach — speedily in our days.