Pen pals

PHOENIX, AZ — Two rabbinical students visited Arizona prisons during the week of July 8-15 as part of The Aleph Institute’s National Summer Visitation Program.

Levi Eisenberg, 22, from Brooklyn, N.Y., and Shalom Goldberg, also 22, from Toronto, met in Arizona on July 6. They rented a car and drove to various prisons around the state, visiting Jewish inmates. After their week in Arizona, they traveled to New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.

Both students have studied at various yeshivas throughout their lives, and both have been heavily influenced by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

“The Chabad-Lubavitch movement educates one on how to educate other Jews,” Eisenberg says. “So while we had no formal training for this project, it is something that both of us have been prepared for through years of education.”

“Most of the time, the inmates initiate the conversations,” Goldberg says. “They all face similar issues. They all struggle to get a kosher meal while incarcerated. They all face threats from other inmates over their religious beliefs.”

“Inmates have a lot of time to think,” Eisenberg says. “So they tend to be more receptive to issues like spirituality and religion, because it gives them a source of inspiration that can’t be taken away from them.”

The Aleph Institute is a national, nonprofit 501(c)(3), publicly supported charitable organization founded in 1981 under the direction of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. One of Schneerson’s strongest beliefs was ahavat yisrael, love of every Jew. As such, one of the main objectives of The Aleph Institute is advocacy for Jewish inmates around the United States.

“The Jewish community is small enough that we all need to look after each other. A lot of the inmates made mistakes. They become ostracized from the rest of the population,” Eisenberg says.

“A lot of them beg us to come back,” Goldberg says. “But everyone can do something to help, whether it’s physically going to a prison to visit inmates or simply becoming a pen pal of an inmate.”

Both Eisenberg and Goldberg say talking to the inmates has inspired them as well, because of the strength of the inmates’ faith. The visitation program started in June and runs through the middle of September. In all, there are 12 two-student groups that will travel to 37 states and visit more than 3,000 inmates, according to Leah Sherman of the institute.

Visit aleph-institute.org.