Supporting Jews in jail

For most of us, the busy period from Rosh Hashana to Simchat Torah is a time of celebration with family and friends. For Jews in jail, it can be the hardest and most lonely of times.

Their lifeline to Jewish connection is the prison chaplaincy.

“The biggest challenges Jewish prisoners have is their sense of isolation and loneliness especially around the time of chagim (festivals), where typically one would be surrounded by friends and family,” says David, a Jewish chaplain in Victoria’s prison system.

 “We are caring for the people in the most vulnerable time often when they have lost all of their family,” adds Mark, another Victorian chaplain.

In the lead up to the High Holidays, I talked with Mark and David, who have both been visiting prisoners on a regular basis since 2017. They asked I withhold their last names due to the sensitive nature of their work.

Globally, visiting Jewish prisoners in jail took off in the 1980s, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the grand Hasidic rabbi of Chabad in New York, encouraged his followers to visit Jewish people in jail.

Unlike the legal system, which views prisoners as people deserving of punishment, the Rebbe took a radically progressive approach, asserting that all Jews are “responsible to make sure that criminals are helped in their lives, rehabilitating them to a productive life in a moral and just society…and ensure that prison acts not just as a punishment, but as an opportunity for positive growth.”