Rabbi concerned about access to Jewish inmates in some prisons

Rabbis’ access to Jewish inmates is being restricted in state prisons, according to Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel.

Vogel is the executive director of the Aleph Institute-Northeast Region. The organization offers religious programs and services to incarcerated Jewish men, women and their families with the help of trained rabbis and volunteers.

At state prisons, Vogel said, a “rule of five” is being enforced that requires faith groups to have the attendance of five people in order to be permitted to have access to a rabbi or spiritual leader.

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“If they don’t have a rabbi, it means there’s no one making arrangements for them to get together, hence there are no accommodations for the Jewish inmates,” he said.

The problem, Vogel explained, comes down to time and space. The state recognizes 26 different religious groups. Each group must have access to the chapel to meet. With so many different groups, the state has decided a minimum of five inmates are required to be considered a faith group and have access to the space and a spiritual leader.

A rabbi can continue to visit inmates individually, Vogel said, but the ability to hold services is restricted.

The situation is exacerbated, he explained, because of the way the state prison system houses inmates. The state ensures that prisoners are grouped together by certain classifications of crimes, Vogel said, with the intention being that someone imprisoned for not paying child support isn’t housed with a murderer. As a result, Jewish inmates are at a disadvantage when forced to create faith groups of five because they are housed in various areas.

“We know that there’s a very small number of Jewish inmates in every prison so there’s no way of accommodating them,” he said.

In one prison, Vogel said, a rabbi is no longer allowed to lead services because there aren’t five Jewish prisoners housed together; he is unable to even send a rabbi as a volunteer because the Aleph Institute doesn’t have Jewish services there.

The solution, he said, would be for inmates to file a grievance and take the issue to court. That might be daunting, though, because of the fear of retaliation, as they would be confronting the very system that keeps them safe and supervises their time, both while incarcerated and on parole.

“If they file a grievance against one department, they’re afraid they aren’t going to get paroled, that they’ll be hurt by guards,” Vogel said. “In the inmate’s mind, there’s no end in sight to what could happen. He doesn’t want to get marked. He’d rather keep his head down and do his time, so he doesn’t get in any trouble.”

Vogel said that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which protects Pennsylvania prisoners’ religious rights, requires the state to allow access to rabbis but the “rule of five” infringes on that.

The issue isn’t only arising in the state of Pennsylvania but is happening across the nation, Vogel said, adding that he’s been in touch with rabbis in other states, like Connecticut, experiencing the same restrictions.

In emailed correspondence to the Chronicle, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Press Secretary Maria Bivens said that rabbis’ access is not limited in any state prison.

“Rabbis are always welcome to serve as Religious Advisors for those incarcerated,” she wrote.

Those visits are one-on-one in the prison’s visiting room, Bivens said.

Rabbis, and others who identify with the Jewish faith, are also able to volunteer and conduct services or classes for participants, regardless of how many people attend, she said.

The confusion, she explained, is that in 2018 the Department of Corrections was sued by an inmate. A settlement was reached that created the “rule of five,” which codified a rule allowing weekly faith group meetings without the presence of a faith leader to guide them, as long as five or more individuals participated.

“For consistency and fairness to all faiths, the ‘Rule of 5’ was applied to all religious services,” she wrote. “Per the settlement agreement, if a faith group is led by a volunteer, such groups do not have to meet the ‘Rule of 5’ threshold.”

Vogel, however, believes that prisons are now using that rule to limit who is considered an institutional religious leader, as opposed to a religious adviser.

Institutional religious leaders have access to areas of the jail that volunteers or religious advisers do not, like a chapel, he said. He added that institutional religious leaders provide functions that are not always recognized. To illustrate his point, he told a story about his early days with the Aleph Institute.

Vogel was “burnt out” and feeling the weight of his work with inmates, he said, and shared his feelings with Rabbi Abraham Twerski. Twerski told him he should take some time off. Vogel did just that, taking three-month sojourn away from the prisons. When he returned to one prison, an inmate with whom he had not interacted asked him where he had been. When the rabbi asked how he knew who he was, the prisoner explained that a group of Jewish prisoners, who didn’t reveal to the prison that they were Jewish, noted his comings and goings, finding comfort in his presence. They took note when his biweekly visits ceased.

“We know that if we need a rabbi, there’s a rabbi coming in,” the prisoner told Vogel. “To me, it was loud and clear that even those inmates I didn’t visit were served by a rabbi coming in and receiving support from my visits,” he said.

And while he understands the tensions the state prison system is under, Vogel is clear about the consequences of the “rule of five.”

“The only rehabilitation in the prison system,” he said, “is religion. What we’re seeing now is that the Jewish inmate doesn’t receive any rehabilitation.” PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.