Rick Perry is a mensch. Now he has a 26-inch mezuzah named after him to prove it.
Back in June, responding to a Jewish couple whose condo association forced them to remove a mezuzah from their doorway, the Texas governor signed a bill requiring home owners associations to allow religious displays up to 25 inches.
In commemoration of the new law, Rabbi Aaron Shaffier, a certified Torah scribe living in Israel, commissioned an enormous “Texas style” mezuzah and named it after Perry.
“I saw that Texas passed a law to override the right of condominium associations to ban mezuzahs and that it was signed by Governor Rick Perry, who at that time was not a presidential candidate yet,” Shaffier told The Daily Caller. “I thought it would be nice to make a mezuzah to commemorate that law.”
This isn’t the first time Perry has had an entertaining brush with the chosen people. In a video that has recently become a YouTube hit, Gov. Perry danced the hora after lighting the Hanukkah candles in a December 2010 ceremony at the Texas State Capitol.
Rabbi Shaffier was quick to point out that the mezuzah wasn’t an endorsement of Gov. Perry. “This wasn’t for Rick Perry or anything like that,” the Rabbi said. “It was just to commemorate this very interesting saga in American history with the mezuzahs and the condominiums and this law that was done in Texas.”
The Rabbi couldn’t help tweaking his nose at the law a bit. After admitting he knew the law only permitted mezuzahs up to 25 inches, he said “I thought it would be cute to make a mezuzah commemorating this law, but to make it 26 inches. Just to kind of poke fun, in a light-hearted way, at the idea that there is such a law at all.”
If you’re interested, you can purchase the Rick Perry Mezuzah here.
