Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) has given the go-ahead for kosher food to be served in Maryland prisons, but numerous details need to be worked out before Jewish prisoners can expect kosher chicken on Friday nights.

“It is not a simple thing,” said Rabbi Harold Axelrod, the Maryland Department of Corrections chaplain tasked with figuring out how a system for providing kosher meals can be implemented in Maryland’s 30 state correctional facilities.

Alexrod’s report, submitted last Friday, outlines the various logistical issues with which prison officials will have to deal – everything from the best way to acquire the food to ensuring that it is handled and served properly at each individual prison – and makes recommendations on the best ways to make it happen.

Mark Vernarelli, director of public information for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said that he could not put a timetable on implementation.

He noted that the report has to be reviewed by Mary Ann Saar, Maryland secretary of public safety and correctional services, before any action can be taken.

Ehrlich’s decision to move forward on the matter comes after many months of work by his administration on the issue, according to Alan Friedman, the governor’s director of legislative services.

“There were a lot of logistics to work through,” said Friedman. “We first surveyed other states … [and] got an idea what other people are doing,” he said. Friedman then surveyed the prison population to find out how many inmates would request kosher food.

Friedman said he did not have figures from that study, but Vernarelli said approximately 200 prisoners, out of a total of 26,000 in the state correctional system, identify as Jewish.

Axelrod said verifying that those who request kosher food are actually Jewish is an issue when implementing a kosher food program.

Also important is ensuring that the food is handled properly once it gets to the prison – that it is prepared and served so it remains kosher and doesn’t, for instance, end up on nonkosher plates. Provisions would have to be made to ensure that an inmate isn’t served a glass of milk with a flayshig dinner.

Axelrod suggests that a training program might be a good idea for prison personnel, noting that Jewish inmates are scattered throughout the state.

In addition, kosher meals will need to meet the dietary requirements to which all prison meals must adhere. Axelrod pointed out that a “kosher TV dinner” may not have enough calories to meet those standards, so bread or fruit might have to be added to such a meal.

He also said that kosher food will be more costly, although he could not provide exact figures.

“I have an obligation to protect the free exercise of religion as well as an obligation to not break the bank,” he said.

The rabbi said he has received “fantastic support from everyone here [at the Department of Corrections] and the governor’s office” in putting together his report.

Ehrlich’s decision to move forward with kosher food came almost a year after a federal court ruled that Maryland’s Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland could deny kosher food, as well as Jewish worship and Judaic objects, to a prison inmate.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act states that the government cannot pass a law that places a substantial burden – even if it applies equally to everyone – on a prison inmate’s free exercise of religion unless it can show that there is a compelling government interest for that law.

The government also must use the “least restrictive means” of furthering that compelling interest.

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz ruled last November that “additional costs and creation of perceived favoritism between religious groups are legitimate compelling interests that override the burden placed on plaintiff’s ability to follow a kosher diet.”

One person with knowledge of the prison system, who for personal reasons asked not to be identified, said it was virtually “impossible” for a Jew to keep kosher on his own in a Maryland state prison at the present time.

Since correctional rules require that each prisoner be treated the same, this source said, inmates cannot, for instance, get an extra piece of fruit in lieu of the nonkosher meat they won’t be eating. Thus, a kosher prisoner would have to purchase extra food at the commissary – but most inmates don’t have the money to do so.

Pork products are not served in Maryland correctional facilities, but no other regular religious dietary accommodations, such as halal food for Muslims, are made for prisoners of other religions, said Axelrod.

There are, however, “special dietary feedings provided once a year for various religious groups as required by the tenants of their faith,” he said.

These include a kosher meal on Passover for Jewish prisoners and an Eid feast at the end of Ramadan for Muslims – and prisoners can request a change in time for their meals in accordance with holidays so, for instance, Muslims are able to eat before sunrise and after sundown during Ramadan.

Silver Spring Jewish Center Rabbi Herzel Kranz has lobbied Ehrlich on the kosher food issue every chance he’s had in the past year – from the governor’s annual Annapolis Chanukah party last December to an Orthodox Union-sponsored speaking appearance in September in Silver Spring’s Kemp Mill – and is pleased that the process is finally under way.

“A person has a First Amendment right” to practice religion, Kranz said. “The punishment of jail [is about] losing freedom, not taking away your religious observances.”