Article: There is a practice of touching and/or kissing a mezuzah with your fingers when leaving or entering a room. A 2009 study by Israeli doctors of 70 mezuzot in an Israeli hospital found significant bacteria on the mezuzot, suggesting that touching them can lead to spreading disease. However, doctors at a Brooklyn hospital recently repeated the study with 100 mezuzot and did not find the same results. While the mezuzot had some microbes, they did not reach the level of growing infectious diseases. At the Israeli hsopital, the mezuzot were never cleaned, for fear of ruining the mezuzot. At the Brooklyn hospital, the staff were told to clean the mezuzot regularly.
Questions for Kids:
- Do you ever touch or kiss mezuzot? Why do some Jews have this custom?
- How do germs get on the mezuzot?
- Why do you think diseases-causing microbes were found in the Israeli hospital mezuzot but not in the New York ones?
- What other things are touched regularly that should probably be cleaned to avoid spreading germs?
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