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Forced to remove a mezuzah

Question:

I have bee directed by my building owner that I can no longer display a mezuzah outside my door. Where can I put it?

Thank you.

Answer:

Before getting to the halachic aspect of your question, the fact that a landlord will instruct a tenant to do something like this is very serious and could be a precident to very serious anti-Semitic behaviour. I would advise you to contact Agudas Yisroel or other civic activists, to see if they can help curtail such behaviour in the future.

Regarding your question. The mezuza essentially has to be on the doorpost and inside the airspace of the doorway. So here are the various option in descending order.

  1. The best option is, if you can move it so it will be behind the door, but still inside the doorway (between the two door posts) that is best.
  2. If the door post doesn’t extend past the door on the inside, there is an option to take three pieces of wood and attach them to the inside of the door post, which would technically extend the doorpost inside the apartment, past the present doorposts. After attaching these pieces of wood you can attach the mezuza in the airspace of your extended doorpost on the right side.
  3. If that can’t be done then even one piece of wood (that is at least 10 tefachim (38 inches) long and the bottom of it should not be 3 tefachim (about than 11 inches) above the floor. This piece of wood should be attached to the right side of the doorway. Then you could put the mezuza on that piece of wood, (after attached the woods to the wall).
  4. If this is not possible and you are left with no choice, b’shas hadchak it can be put on the inside of the doorpost facing the house.

Sources:

Shulchan Aruch Y:D 289-2 Shach ibid -3, Chovas Hador 9 ftnt 22, Pischei Shearim 289-43.

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