Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Demand for kosher cuisine swells ranks of Jewish prison chaplains in U.S.
Mendel Slavin went to work as a chaplain in a San Diego prison in 2006. A Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic rabbi from the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, he was one of about a dozen Jewish chaplains serving California's fractional Jewish inmate population at the time. But in the two years since then, that number has doubled. Today Slavin is one of two dozen full-time chaplains employed by the state of California to provide counseling and lead religious services for Jews - and interested non-Jews - who are doing time.
Why the sudden surge in the numbers of Jewish chaplains in the Golden State? Three words: kosher food supervision.
In 2003, the state of California settled a lawsuit with Victor Wayne Cooper, an Orthodox Jew serving a 60-year sentence for child molestation. Cooper had sued the state for not providing him with kosher meals. As part of the settlement, the state agreed to make good-faith efforts to have kosher food available to inmates in all of its 33 prisons by 2006.
As a direct result of the lawsuit, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been scrambling in recent years, in conjunction with the Northern and Southern California boards of rabbis, to install a Jewish chaplain at every prison in order to oversee the preparation of kosher food.
A similar case in Texas is still pending. But that state's answer to a lawsuit brought in 2005 on behalf of Max Moussazadeh, a Jew of Iranian descent, has been to consolidate all 23 of its kosher-observant inmates into one prison, bypassing the need for Jewish chaplains across the board.
The work extends far beyond merely vetting jailhouse kosher cuisine. According to one longtime Jewish chaplain, his niche is as close as a rabbi can come to performing missionary work.
"We work with the underbelly of society, the spiritually void, the morally empty," said Rabbi Lon Moskowitz, the Jewish chaplain at California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo. "It's important to have chaplains so we can facilitate the Jewish Kosher Diet Plan statewide, but it's a requirement so that the spiritual needs of incarcerated Jews are met."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/991163.html
Why the sudden surge in the numbers of Jewish chaplains in the Golden State? Three words: kosher food supervision.
In 2003, the state of California settled a lawsuit with Victor Wayne Cooper, an Orthodox Jew serving a 60-year sentence for child molestation. Cooper had sued the state for not providing him with kosher meals. As part of the settlement, the state agreed to make good-faith efforts to have kosher food available to inmates in all of its 33 prisons by 2006.
As a direct result of the lawsuit, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been scrambling in recent years, in conjunction with the Northern and Southern California boards of rabbis, to install a Jewish chaplain at every prison in order to oversee the preparation of kosher food.
A similar case in Texas is still pending. But that state's answer to a lawsuit brought in 2005 on behalf of Max Moussazadeh, a Jew of Iranian descent, has been to consolidate all 23 of its kosher-observant inmates into one prison, bypassing the need for Jewish chaplains across the board.
The work extends far beyond merely vetting jailhouse kosher cuisine. According to one longtime Jewish chaplain, his niche is as close as a rabbi can come to performing missionary work.
"We work with the underbelly of society, the spiritually void, the morally empty," said Rabbi Lon Moskowitz, the Jewish chaplain at California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo. "It's important to have chaplains so we can facilitate the Jewish Kosher Diet Plan statewide, but it's a requirement so that the spiritual needs of incarcerated Jews are met."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/991163.html
Comments:
Executing child molesters would eliminate the need for kosher food.
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Comment Credit ---This article posted by 
: June 11, 2008 1:56 PM
: June 11, 2008 1:56 PM
