PHOTOS: Montana Police Nail Mezuzah on Station Door, Defying Neo-Nazis

By Sam Kestenbaum January 19, 2017

Rabbi Adam Scheier and Chief William Dial affix a mezuzah to a door in the Whitefish police station. Image by Facebook

The police force of Whitefish, Montana — the site of the neo-Nazi march that wasn’t — has just nailed a mezuzah on the door of their station in a sign of solidarity with the beleaguered Jewish community.

During a group tour of Whitefish by Orthodox rabbis from the U.S. and Canada, Rabbi Adam Scheier, a congregational leader from Montreal, asked Police Chief William Dial if he would consider putting a mezuzah on his office door.

According to public Facebook post by Scheier, Dial said, “No, I won’t put it on my office door. I want to put it in a more central location, where everyone will see it.”

The mezuzah was purchased in Israel and is made of white Jerusalem stone. Image by Facebook

Scheir and Dial then nailed the mezuzah, purchased in Israel and made of Jerusalem stone, to a door that “every police officer passes upon entering the station,” Scheir’s Facebook post read.

Only weeks ago, neo-Nazi blogger Andrew Anglin vowed to lead an armed march in this ski-town against members of the Jewish community. Whitefish is hometown to the white nationalist Richard Spencer, who popularized the term “alt-right.” The neo-Nazi march was organized in support of Spencer and his family, who white nationalists claimed were being unfairly targeted by Jewish activists.

Anglin’s march fell through after he failed to acquire a permit, but for weeks Jews in the city were bombarded with online threats. Anglin has vowed to reschedule his march, perhaps for next month.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO