After an anonymous vandal ripped a mezuzah off the door of a college freshman at Harvard University’s room, in a valiant show of fighting darkness with light and hatred with acts of goodness, the students at Harvard University and their shliach, went to many rooms of Jewish students and proudly affixed a mezuzah to their doorway for the first time.
“We must recognize this incident for what it truly is: a hate crime,” Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi wrote in the college paper, the Harvard Crimson “To tear down a Mezuzah is to send a message of intimidation and erasure,” he added. “It’s not just a matter of vandalism; it is an attack on the very identity of the Jewish community at Harvard.”
Many took to social media to call out the hate crime and bring light to the new mezuzah campaign instigated, encouraging all students on campus to be proud Jews and place a sign of their identity at the doorway.