Tag: Jewish

  • Imprisoned Childhood /Holy Justice

    Right before a judge decides a sentence, they should be reminded they are sentencing that man’s children, too. Prison is full of fathers. Midjourney AI-Generated Image Some are the “stereotypical” 20-somethings who got a girl (or girls) pregnant on their way to prison, but most I’ve met are men in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and…

  • Breakfast of champions

    One day per week, from 6:15am to around 8am, guys line up with empty, heavy-duty mesh laundry bags to scoop their Commissary orders from a metal shoot into their bags while COs scan items and bark orders — at the customer and the incarcerated clerks. Each unit has their “Commissary day”, with some units combined,…

  • Sanctuary, not Sacrifice

    This week we begin reading VaYikra (Leviticus), the Torah’s central book literally (3 of 5) and ethically. The sages say children should begin their learning not with Bereshit (Genesis, “In the beginning…”) but VaYikra, saying “Let the pure come and study purity” [1]. Rabbi Akiva says the core of Judaism is found in it, “You…

  • If you build it…

    Hi Friends, A few quick Torah thoughts… In this and last week’s Torah portions, YaYakhel and Pikudei, G-d tells Moses to have the people build the Mishkan, Tabernacle, a traveling Temple that our Rabbis explain was a “home for G-d” to convene with the Jewish people until we built the Temple in Jerusalem, a model…

  • The man who named Bat Man

    I wonder if the guy who named “Big Bird” is the same guy who named “Bat Man”. I bet he used to tell his wife how difficult work was. Probably while drunk. “You don’t understand. You think anyone can just come up with a character name? Years ago they called me in, ‘It’s a man…

  • Donkey Empathy

    This week’s Torah Portion, Mishpatim, is perhaps my favorite. Like a great standup bit, it seems to be random observations going nowhere in particular, until the final revelation. Hot off the giving of the Ten Commandments, we have a Parsha that is different from many which came before it. There are no spectacular miracles, no…

  • Heritage of Spirit

    “Most people are standing, here, with one foot in the past and one in the future,” Zater says, drawing a man on a lined notebook sheet, “But they’re looking and leaning back, like there’s a mattress against the wall in the past, and they fall into it and it bounces them forward, but they just…

  • Heritage of Spirit

    “Most people are standing, here, with one foot in the past and one in the future,” Zater says, drawing a man on a lined notebook sheet, “But they’re looking and leaning back, like there’s a mattress against the wall in the past, and they fall into it and it bounces them forward, but they just…

  • “Manning Up”

    A strange set of stories introduce us to Israel’s greatest prophet and leader in this week’s Parsha, Exodus: “It happened in those days that Moses grew up and went out to his bretheren and observed their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man, from his brethren. He turned (faced) this way…

  • The Second Floor Toilet Persists

    “I’m doing my best, but some days are brutal,” says the 2nd floor, rear Glass House toilet, the most-popular by volume. “My brother works over at the Ritz Carlton on Collins. Second floor lobby, Men’s just like me, but that’s where the similarity ends. Most people don’t even know his room exists. He rarely has…

  • Jewish geese

    If I say, “Jewish goose” you immediately picture a rather anti-Semitic image. Furry hat? Big nose? Briefcase? Check. Maybe your goose has a bag of money. Shame on you, and me, too. It’s too bad, when we think of a Jewish Goose we don’t see it volunteering at the soup kitchen. You didn’t even see…

  • Chanukah in Prison

    In prison, seeing a flame is rare. Tonight, dozens of them adorned folding tables near the glass front doors of the chapel, colorful wax candles stuck in ubiquitous tin Chanukah Menorahs, lit by Jewish men from Israel, Germany, Latin America, the United States, and Florida. Some men sat and stared at the fire for a…

  • In the Image of the Creator

    I have been thinking a lot about hunger lately, because I’m often hungry here. The kosher meals, cheap TV dinners full of soy, sodium, and fillers, are calorie-short, even if you could eat all of them. They are frequently moldy or full of melted or broken bits of plastic. I kept a log for a…

  • Family & Forgiveness : Reuben’s Voice (Abortion)

    One of the simultaneously most-painful and most-beautiful moments in prison is watching a small boy or girl cling to their father, grab him one last time, before visiting day hours are over. It may be the last time they see him for the week, or months if they live far away. You don’t want to…

  • Teaching Art in Prison

    Last night, I taught a drawing class to a room full of men accused of crimes ranging from armed bank robbery, to child porn, to drug running, to white-collar fraud, to illegal migration, to public corruption… The Education building of FCI Miami Low looks like a small school, but with the same heavy steel doors…

  • Judaism through new eyes

    Shavua Tov. This was a laid-back Shabbat with some nice highlights. “Bek” (Dennis Gogel), the German soldier who discovered he’s Jewish in prison, attended Friday night services and got his first Aliyah to the Torah (being called up to the Torah) this morning. I was leining (reading the Torah), and it was super nice to…

  • The Lebanese Jewish Zen Monk Who Taught Nazis to Fight

    The Lebanese Jewish Zen Monk Who Taught Nazis to Fight

    “Nobody with hope joins a gang,” says Brian Zater, the Lebanese Jewish Zen Monk of Glass House. He’s telling me about his first encounter with a White Nationalist, “He was covered from the neck down in tattoos, with plenty of swastikas.” Brian Jones approached Zater, the new guy in the Pen, in a TV room…

  • Perspective

    I got to chatting with a young Jewish guy, “New York”, in my unit. He’s out in about 41 days and I asked about his plans. He wants to go into cybersecurity, where he’d had a business before, or something similar. But overall he felt stuck, no friends, lost a child, rough relationship — there…