Last year, we purchased a rental property in which there is a Mezuzah on the entry door post. We are not Jewish, and we want to be as respectful as possible. The house is 75 years old and at some long-ago point it must have been owned by a Jewish family. Would it be OK to simply leave the Mezuzah where it is? I feel like it is part of the house, having been there watching over it for so long.

Shalom, Thank you for your question. It’s a pleasure to get questions from people with such respect and honor for the Jewish people. May you, and your new house, be blessed with all that’s good and holy. The ideal answer to your question is that the mezuzah, with its parchment inside it (which is the most important part), should be returned to an Orthodox Jew, and they will know what to do with it. The reason that this is the ideal is for several reasons. One is that the mezuzah is a command especially for the Jewish people – and so having one on a non-Jewish house is both spiritually “the wrong address”, and on a very practical level, is “misleading”, as it sends a message that this is a Jewish household. (There are also questions of “cultural misappropriation” that some people might feel). There is also a worry that it might come to be mistreated – even by mistake. If though you do decide to leave it on the doorframe, may I suggest that you do try to treat it with the care and respect it deserves. That is, to be careful to only act “properly” it front of it (that includes modesty in dress, polite and kind speech, no acts of other religions etc). And to recall that if it ever does come down, it should be passed on to an Orthodox Jew for safe keeping. Many blessings.