San Antonio Express-News
KENEDY -- For two hours a month, a plain conference room becomes a synagogue for a handful of Jewish inmates at the Connally Unit state prison.
Seated on folding chairs around a small table, they cover their heads with yarmulkes. They munch on matzo crackers and macaroons. They drink red grape juice in white Styrofoam cups.
And they make toasts with the man who links the Jewish free world to the faith they struggle to observe behind bars.
Rabbi Yosef Marrus of San Antonio makes an hour-and-a-half drive to this South Texas prison.
"What if you or I were there? Would we not want someone to visit us?" said Marrus, an Orthodox rabbi of the Chabad Lubavitch of South Texas. "No Jew is left behind no matter where they are, whether they're in prison or a place where there are no Jews."
Today begins the eight-day Passover holiday, and its message of freedom, that God delivered the ancient Israelites from Egyptian bondage, is an easy one for the inmates to apply.
"Even though I'm locked up physically, mentally and spiritually, I'm free," said Gary Simpson, 46, who has served 10 years of a 40-year prison sentence for sexual assault of a child.
Six state prisons have designated space for Jewish services and educational programming. Marrus is one of three official Jewish chaplains for the state's 861 inmates who say they are Jewish. Only 75 legitimately qualify as Jewish, according to the chaplains. The rest are converts, who are welcomed at services but whose link to Judaism hasn't been confirmed, the rabbis said.
Besides stocking chapels with ritual food and materials, the rabbis also advocate for openness to Judaism in a state prison system where 130-plus faiths compete for accommodation.
During Marrus' visit last month, he conducted a rehearsal of the Passover ceremony, or Seder. The inmates read from the step-by-step booklet for Passover, the Haggadah, and recited prayers and blessings in Hebrew and English. They asked themselves the Passover questions aimed at reflection of the historic event as well as what it means to everyday life.
"Why is this night different from all other nights?" Marrus asked them rhetorically. "What did this mean thousands of years ago? What did this mean for Jews living in Auschwitz or to you now in prison? Focus on the positive, not the negative."
For the inmates, Passover feeds their hope in a hostile environment where they are pressured to join gangs and can come to believe that their lives are not redeemable.
"Where we live, it's hard to have hope," said 25-year-old David Holford, only four years into a life sentence for capital murder, which mandates at least another 36 years before he's eligible for parole.
No comments:
Post a Comment