Tag: Prison

  • 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…

  • The Men Inside (Child Abuse)

    “At 7, I was bound, abducted, and forced to have sex with other children, in a cinderblock room, much like I was kept at The Building,” says David (name changed). He has said this twice, in the past week, the entire time we’ve known each other since he arrived from “The Building”, what the men…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • A Hopeful Shabbat

    In this week’s Parsha, our forefather Yaacov promises Laban to work seven years to earn Rachel as his wife. The Torah says that because he loved Rachel, the seven years “seemed like little time to him” (Vayetse, 29:20). The Shadal (Trieste, Italy) explains that “those days were days of tranquility and pleasure, for he took…

  • Psych 101

    Today I had a 12pm (Noon) callout to go to the Psychology department. I don’t like these callouts at all. It’s important to remember that these psychologists work for the BOP, not you, and you are talking to the police whenever you speak with them. As well, given the “I’d offer you to sit but…

  • “Keep pushing to see what happens”

    Sometimes the prison walls and barbed wire fences squeeze you a little tighter than you can bear — or it feels that way. There are days when call after call goes to voicemail directly because friends assume calls from “Washington DC” are spam (Store 202-499-3650 as ‘BOP Prison Call’ so you know if a friend…

  • Bar Mitzvah #2 – Weekend Update

    This week I leined (read for the congregation) the Torah portion of Lech Lecha, the third Torah portion, where Abraham leaves his father’s land and heads to what becomes Israel. This was, I learned after, the first time the Jews at FCI Miami have had a Minyan (10 Jewish men) and read from the Torah…