Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel nominated for Shuman oversight board
"We’ve got to give these kids the opportunity to lead healthy lives.”
Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel first visited a prison nearly five decades ago.
While home in Manchester, England, for Pesach in 1978, the then-student rabbi accompanied his father to visit a prominent community member who had been arrested. When asked why he would take such a long trip to visit someone who brought shame to the Jewish community, Vogel’s father told his son that there is always an opportunity for a person to repent and it is important to bring light into the world.
It’s a lesson he learned well.
Vogel is the executive director of the Aleph Institute, N.E. Regional Headquarters. The organization offers religious, educational and humanitarian services to imprisoned Jewish men and women and their families.
“We’re not allowed to abandon them,” Vogel said. “We’ve got to recognize that they’re our brothers and sisters and that we’re responsible. King David says in Tehillim, ‘Every Jew is responsible one for another.’”
When Vogel returned to Israel after visiting the prison with his father 47 years ago, he began making weekly visits to Jewish inmates at a Jerusalem jail. When he was ready to serve the Jewish community as an adult, the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson sent Vogel to Pittsburgh to establish the Aleph Institute.
“Our job is to help them up, dust off the dirt and help them become productive members of society,” Vogel said of those incarcerated.
The Aleph Institute supports Jewish prisoners by providing items for holidays and religious observance — Vogel is currently working on his 35th Purim observance — lends religious books through the statewide prison library system, trains volunteers, coordinates prison visits and records d’var Torahs and holiday messages, among other services.
The institute also works, through its alternative sentencing program, to help community members who have committed their first, non-violent crime avoid prison. The program involves probation, reporting to the Aleph Institute, three hours of religious and/or social education sessions per week and a minimum of 15 hours of weekly community service, among other requirements.
Realizing those with a loved one in prison may have other needs, Vogel started helping families experiencing food insecurity. That initiative has expanded to a communitywide program supporting anyone who needs food assistance.
Late last month, Vogel was nominated by Allegheny County Councilmember Suzanne Filiaggi to serve on a soon-to-be created advisory board of Highland Detention at Shuman Center.
The detention center reopened in 2024 after being shuttered nearly three years ago. It will provide meals, education, recreation and physical, mental and behavioral health services. It currently has the capacity to house 12 juveniles but is expanding to include 60 beds.
Vogel said that over the years, Aleph has worked with a number of juveniles. That need didn’t go away when Shuman closed, he said, and it continues now that the center has reopened.
The rabbi consulted with several advisers when he was approached about being nominated to the board.
“My only fear was, will it take away from the work that I’m doing? Will it hurt? I was assured by many in whom I confided that it would not,” he said.
Vogel agreed to the nomination when he was certain his possible addition to the board would help and not hinder both the advisory board and the Aleph Institute.
The philosophy he brings to his nomination is the same he’s had since he first began working with adult inmates.
“The same rules that apply to one human, apply to another,” Vogel said. “They should have the same tools and concern: No one should be mistreated; everyone should have the opportunity to be rehabilitated.”
Individuals, Vogel said, should be given the tools to be a part of a healthy community and mature as well-rounded individuals.
“My goal with this center is to ensure that punishment is used to correct individual errors,” he said.
Incarceration alone, Vogel noted, does not teach lessons. Commitment to the juveniles detained in Shuman will require more services, not fewer, both from the government and society, he said.
“The community should be volunteering to get in the door to help a person. There should be volunteers coming in to put their arms around a young kid to try and help them,” he said. “Yes, it’s a lot of work but we’ve got to give these kids the opportunity to lead healthy lives.”
Other nominees to the board include Maria Guido and Tanisha Long. Both Guido and Long have posted anti-Zionist statements on social media and have expressed support for suspected murderer Luigi Mangione.
Long, a community organizer with the Abolitionist Law Center, has accused Israel of apartheid and genocide and promoted BDS initiatives in Pittsburgh.
On Nov. 7, 2024, Long posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Don’t give Donald Trump credit for ending the genocide when Israel decides that they’ve killed enough Palestinians. Israel was always going to keep going until Trump got elected. Genocide was their electoral strategy.”
Guido is a social worker whose X profile includes a picture of a Palestinian flag with the phrase “Abolitionists for Palestine.”
She acknowledged her nomination for the board saying that “Zionists and right wing bigots are trying to stop it, and no, I don’t really care. Im doing things on a national level. If I’m picked, cool. If not, that’s cool too.”
Guido also has pushed conspiracy theories, retweeting in January a post from @bonsaisky that said, “The way Zionists are tweeting today, you’d never know that Israel killed the Bibas family using U.S. bombs.”
Last month, Guido reposted an Al Jazeera story about a 15-year-old Palestinian sentenced to 18 years in prison for his involvement in an attack in the West Bank, writing, “I’m in tears. I hate Israel.”
Long and Guido were both nominated to the board by Allegheny County Councilmember Bethany Hallam.
Last year, Hallam introduced legislation calling on Israel to commit to a cease-fire in Gaza, without mentioning Hamas or the terrorist organization’s Oct. 7 attack in Israel, during which it murdered 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage.
Following Hamas’ invasion of Israel, Hallam reposted a poem on X about breaking down walls and a celebratory video of the terrorists breaking down the security gate on their way to murder, rape and kidnap Israeli civilians, including children. Other anti-Israel posts followed.
Five additional nominees have been nominated for the board: Kimberly Dunlevy, by Councilmember Bob Macey; Robert Marc Davis, by Councilmember Suzanne Filiaggi; Lee Davis, by Councilmember Michelle Naccarati-Chapkis; Terri Collin Dilmore, by Councilmember Dan Grzybek; and, Jason Gagorik, chief police of Whitehall Township, by Council President Patrick Catena.
The council will send one name from the eight for consideration by Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, who will send four selections of her own to County Council for its approval. The council’s recommendation is expected to be made sometime in March. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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