The state of Indiana has decided its Jewish prisoners can keep kosher with help from the correctional system’s kitchen. On Monday, the state of Indiana dismissed the appeal of a lower court’s decision to require prisons to find cheap kosher food to feed observant Jewish inmates. The Indiana Department of Corrections already provides vegan and halal meals at a prisoner’s request. The Hoosiers concluded that kosher should be no different.
Dan Elbaum, director of Chicago’s American Jewish Committee’s group had filed an amicus brief to the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Maston Willis v. Commission, Indiana Department of Corrections in support of an Orthodox Jewish inmate who has been denied kosher food. The landmark Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act requires states to accommodate reasonable religious requests from prison inmates.
(Source: Chicago Tribune)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
6 Responses
I am so glad that former frum yidden (no yid who commits a crime can be frum) now have one less aveira.
Yserbius, not every crime is an aveira. And not every person in prison is guilty.
What about teshuva Mr. Yserbius?
Also, the person could not be frum/orthodox from the get go, but after doing something unsavory that put him into jail- he has gained introspection and his now looking to connect to his yiddishkeit.
DQB
wow yserbius u must b some tzadik or extremely naive!! the last time i checked the ny prisons and many others are full with frum yiddin.
It is unfortunate that Jews who are required to keep Malchus Madina, do not. This is a bushah on the Torah communtiy as a whole and there are extremely few excuses for this “common” occurrence that the prison in Otisville NY is refereed to as the federal kollel program. shame on all of us
I am a Chaplain who visits inmates in jails & prisons. I could write a book about all the frum inmates who were arrested, booked and incarcerated for anywhere from 24 hours to a couple of years and then released because the DA didn’t have enough evidence. In some cases Frum Yidden were arrested because their medical billing service overcharged Medicare. Remember, be careful what you sign or approve. Your signature IS you. I once had a Dr. who was arrested for a $240.00 State Medical fraud. He spent 2 weeks (over Pesach) in jail but fought the case for years until he was finally cleared. I recently stumbled upon a Jewish (not frum) Lawyer who was in solitary confinement for a year and a half for a 5 day contempt charge against a judge. They just ‘buried him in solitary so that no one will know he’s there and no one will help him. I got him kosher meals during the time he was there. Many of our 25 frum Chaplains visited him during his incarceration. We davened with him, put Tefillin on him and just sat and talked with him. He came from a ‘Traditional Jewish family. He knew how to say some brochos but that was the extent of his Yiddishkeit. In jail he learned how to daven with the help of Artscroll and he davened (since he had nothing else t do). He was release on Erev Yom Kippur and the first thing he said in his newspaper interview was “I took my case all the way up to the Supreme Court. They denied my case. But I was release by a higher power on Erev Yom Kippur!” You can look up this man’s info by Googling: Richard I Fine, Esq.