Blessings Behind Bars

by Rick Adelman – World Jewish Digest

Bochurim Yisroel Silverstein and Reuven Brody at the entrance to the Davis Correctional Facility in Maryland this past summer as part of Aleph Institute’s Nationwide Summer Prison Visitation Program.

Rachel knew it wouldn’t be easy explaining her husband’s prolonged absence. Since she wasn’t about to tell anyone the truth – that Jacob was serving a seven-month prison sentence – the South Florida woman simply decided to curtail her social interactions.

“I don’t want people to ask me,” she said. “No one knows, except for our parents, close family members and one lady in the community I’m close with.”

Shame. Pain. Humiliation. They come with the territory when a loved one is behind bars. But in the Jewish community, the stigma of incarceration is even more pronounced since Jews typically are not associated with the type of criminal activities that warrant jail terms.

According to Rabbi Menachem M. Katz, director of the prison program for The Aleph Institute based at The Shul of Bal Harbor in Surfside, Fla., roughly 5,000 Jews, including 300 women, are serving time in 400 prisons across the United States. That number represents a tiny fraction of the country’s total prison population of around 2.5 million. But that is small consolation for family members of prisoners, like Rachel and her 7- year-old son Ephraim (whose names have been changed to protect their identities, along with “Jacob’s”), who suffer financial and emotional devastation and face uncertain futures.

The non-profit Aleph Institute, founded in 1981 by Rabbi Shalom Lipskar at the behest of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, attempts to address the needs of Jewish inmates and their families. Katz, 36, who has been involved with Aleph’s prison program for 14 years, coordinates visits with inmates at county, state and federal institutions throughout the country.

Rabbis share Torah with prisoners, provide counseling and spiritual guidance, and arrange for religious reading materials and audio tapes to be sent to prison libraries. Aleph also ships hundreds of packages to prisons so inmates can properly observe Jewish holidays. Before last Passover, for instance, Aleph distributed 50,000 pounds of food, including 7,400 pounds of matzo, 1,900 Seder plates and 9,000 cans of macaroons.

The families of incarcerated Jews, left without a breadwinner in many instances, can receive emergency financial assistance to prevent evictions and foreclosures, keep the electricity running or put food in the refrigerator.

“I think the main misconception is that a prisoner is the scum of the earth,” said Rabbi Zvi Boyarsky, director of Aleph’s family services department based in New York City. “The reality is that a large percentage of these prisoners are not evil. They made mistakes; they got carried away. That doesn’t mean they aren’t deserving of all the love, warmth and support they can get.”

With its guard towers and high fences topped with coils of silver barbed wire, glimmering and razor-sharp, Dade Correctional Institution in Florida City, approximately 50 miles south of Miami, is imposing. But for Katz, who visits three or four prisons a week in Florida and on the East Coast, Dade is just another place to do business.

“I can hardly remember the first time I visited a prison, but I don’t think I was scared,” Katz said as he briskly walked toward one of the several nondescript buildings on the prison grounds. “It was a new experience so I didn’t know what to expect. After that I’ve never had any fear going into any correctional facility. There are certain prisons where you can sense danger and a lot of stress in the air. But I’ve never been scared.”

Katz estimates that around 1,500 Jewish prisoners nationwide have committed violent crimes, such as homicide, assault and armed robbery. He has counseled convicted murderers, though the majority of the dozen or so Jewish inmates at Dade committed crimes to support cocaine and heroin addictions.

The inmates warmly greet Katz as he enters a meeting room inside of the building, his arms loaded with Jewish magazines. One at a time, he helps each inmate put on tefillin and recite Shema. Then the inmates take seats around a large table as Katz discusses the weekly parsha and tries to extract an inspirational message. The prisoners listen intently.

When the class is done, the prisoners turn their attention to the miserable conditions inside the prison, the lousy food, the constant noise, the lack of privacy, the chaplain’s insensitivity to their religious needs. Katz is a willing sounding board.

“Every day I regret the choices I made that put me in here,” said Allen Lertzman, 52, a Philadelphia native who has been in and out of jail since his teen years and is serving 18 months. “I mean, I grew up in a good neighborhood and went to a nice high school. It’s hard to stomach. I’m still paying for mistakes I made when I was young. I pray all the time. I guess it helps.”

Katz’s monthly visits, particularly around the holidays, transport Lertzman back to the happy, carefree days of his youth when his large family, including his Orthodox grandmother, gathered for celebrations.

“I think about all the pictures of relatives my mother used to have around the house,” he said. “Most of those people are gone now.”

Todd Daniels, 51, wishes he could speak with his mother who still lives in North Miami, where he was born and raised. But she refuses to take his phone calls. Daniels’ five-year sentence for burglary was the last straw. “I had gotten in trouble a couple of other times and she always hung in there with me,” he said. “She just got to the point where she couldn’t take it anymore. I know she’ll forgive me when I get out.”

Daniels counts his blessings, though. He’s among the handful of fortunate inmates in minimum custody permitted to work outside of the prison. From around 7 a.m. until 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, Daniels does landscaping and maintenance for the Homestead Parks and Recreation Department or helps repair roads and bridges for the state Department of Transportation.

“I look back now, even at my childhood, and I see that God has been showing me how I’ve really been running and hiding my entire life,” said Daniels, who celebrated a bar mitzvah and attended Hebrew school before drifting away from Judaism. “I’m starting to heal some of the emotional pain that I experienced as a youngster. It’s totally regenerating me.”

Daniels credits Katz and Aleph’s outreach with helping him reconnect with Judaism. Last May, Aleph conducted an intensive three-day Yeshiva-type program at Dade that has been duplicated at six other facilities. Prisoners learned for six hours a day, studying Torah, Talmud, Hasidut and Jewish history.

“For a while there I even forgot I was locked up,” Daniels said. “We were so saturated with God and spirit that I felt like I was on fire.”

Daniels’ scheduled release is in two years. This time, he’s confident he won’t return.

“Part of me says, you’ll be 53 when you get out, you’ll never be able to build for retirement and you’re going to be working until you die,” he said. “Then I pray about it. All I have to focus on is if my heart is right with God. I don’t have to be concerned with all the other garbage people worry about when they get out of prison. All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other, trust God, never pick up another drug and I’ll have everything I’ve ever wanted.”

Rabbi Berel Zaklikofsky of Detroit will go a long way to do a mitzvah – hundreds of miles, actually. Over the last three summers, Zaklikofsky traveled throughout several midwestern and western states, one of 40 rabbis Aleph dispatched in pairs with the goal of visiting every Jewish inmate in America. In one case, Zaklikofsky and his partner drove from Seattle to Spokane, a 24-hour round trip, to meet with one Jewish prisoner.

“I’ve sat next to murderers who killed family members,” Zaklikofsky, 24, said. “Sometimes you can tell that the inmates don’t really understand why we’re visiting. We tell them that it’s about making a connection, that they have a second chance. God’s not finished with them just because they did something wrong.

”When we come in, you can see on their faces that their whole mood changes. In prison they do the same thing every day, over and over again. Now they’re sitting with two rabbis, like in shul, not prison.“

At the Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, Wash., Zaklikofsky noticed an inmate who ”looked a little misplaced.“ The rabbi asked Mitchell Pouliot if he wanted to put on tefillin. Pouliot, who had never worn tefillin in his life, agreed but was self-conscious about rolling up his sleeve and exposing his tattoos.

”I told him mitzvahs are for everyone,“ Zaklikofsky said. ”We don’t label anyone. Just because your skin is colored doesn’t mean a thing.“

Zaklikofsky took Pouliot into a corner to shield him from the view of others.

”Halfway through he said, ‘I don’t want to be covered [from view]. This is me, this is what I should be doing,’“ Zaklikofsky recalled. ”He was very emotional.“

For prison outreach rabbis, inspirational moments occur unexpectedly and reinforce the importance of their mission. Two summers ago, Zaklikofsky’s final stop was a facility in Florence, Arizona. He was feeling burnt out and daytime temperatures of 115 degrees weren’t helping.

”We were hoping and praying that this would go well,“ said Zaklikofsky.

One of the inmates told Zaklikofsky that he didn’t even think he was Jewish, explaining that his father was Christian and that his mother had converted from Judaism to Christianity.

”You’re Jewish!“ said Zaklikofsky, who then orchestrated an impromptu and poignant bar mitzvah ceremony as the inmate donned tefillin and recited the Shema in Hebrew and English. Cold sodas from the vending machine capped the celebration.

”Some of these people did terrible things,“ Zaklikofsky said. ”But I’m proud that I could do something to make them happy. It really meant a lot to me.“

Several months ago, Rachel watched her son excitedly open a package that had arrived in the mail. Inside was a gift, accompanied by a typewritten note wishing the youngster a happy birthday. But something didn’t add up. It was signed ”Daddy.“ Ephraim had always called his father ”Poppy.“

When Rachel convinced her son that the present really did come from his dad, he immediately taped the box shut again and put it away, a precious keepsake to be unwrapped and shared only when his father was back home. The birthday presents and thousands of toys and gifts that Aleph sends out for Chanukah often represent the only connection between incarcerated parents and their children.

Every Aleph worker agrees that the punishing effects of prison extend far beyond the iron bars and exercise yards. At 25, Boyarsky already has listened to a lifetime worth of woes, particularly from women cracking under the financial and emotional weight. Aleph recently rescued a wife whose electricity, phone and water were scheduled to be shut off simultaneously. The organization also helped a college student who couldn’t pay her tuition and was going to be kicked out of school; both of her parents are in jail.

”The reality is that families fall apart under the stress,“ Boyarsky said.

Boyarsky’s eight-person staff of employees and volunteers, networking through Chabad Houses and Jewish family services, currently deals with around 500 families nationwide. Aleph facilitates individual counseling sessions and regular support group meetings for women who have nowhere else to turn.

”They don’t have anyone they can talk to. They feel shunned,“ said Boyarsky, adding that children of inmates often are teased at school. In fact, he pointed out, statistics indicate that children with a parent in jail are five times more likely to wind up in the judiciary system.

Rachel attended one support group meeting where a psychologist fielded questions, but she found the experience too painful and hasn’t returned. ”It was heartbreaking listening to these mothers whose sons have been in prison for five years,“ she said. ”I don’t need that.“

Knowing her husband will be home soon brightens Rachel’s mood. She tries not to dwell on the thousands of dollars spent in legal fees or that it will be impossible for Jacob, a highly skilled professional, to resume his old career. What he’s gained in prison ultimately may overshadow any losses.

”Before my husband went to prison, I read an article about Aleph and told him that a rabbi would come and visit him,“ said Rachel. ”He said, ‘If I see a rabbi, I’m walking the other way.’ The very first day he was there, Rabbi Katz walked in. My husband has now read the Chumash twice. He’s putting on tefillin and saying morning prayers. “This whole experience has basically brought our family closer together. I believe that something good will come out of it.”

2 Comments