Aleph Aids Prisoners, Soldiers

Miami Herald

In a small, bustling office tucked into an Orthodox synagogue in Surfside, a dozen men and women spent Thursday stuffing FedEx boxes with the markings of Jewish worship: Hebrew prayer books, camouflage yarmulkes, shawls and shofars.

It was crunch time at Aleph Institute, one of the nation’s largest organizations dedicated to serving Jews in prison and the military, as rabbis and volunteers prepped for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and one of the holiest times of the year.

Every few minutes, there was a new call of a similar tone. “How can my husband get kosher food in prison before he starts the Yom Kippur fast?” a wife asked.

Stacks of handwritten letters sat on desks. A soldier stationed in the Middle East thanked God that he had a traditional Rosh Hashana dinner recently with apples dipped in honey to represent a sweet new year.

Each year, Aleph Institute, based at the Shul of Bal Harbour, serves 5,000 Jewish inmates across the U.S. and thousands of soldiers, including weekly visits to several state and federal prisons in South Florida.

For Yom Kippur, Aleph will have 50 rabbis leading 250 prayer services across the country. The holiday caps the 10-day High Holy Days period that began with Rosh Hashana and is observed sundown Friday through sundown Saturday with fasting and intensive prayer to ask for forgiveness for one’s sins.

FATE FOR THE YEAR

“Our goal is not to free the inmate from prison physically, but to free him spiritually,” said Rabbi Aaron Lipskar, the nonprofit group’s executive vice president.

The aim speaks volumes for a day when Jewish tradition says that God seals the fate of each person for the coming year.

“Many of the inmates in this country are completely destitute,” Lipskar said. “Prison isn’t particularly known for being accommodating to religion,” he added, especially Judaism, where traditional observance requires a kosher diet, hard-to-find prayer items and specific grooming, such as keeping a beard and wearing hair longer than the standard inmate’s clip.

The Jewish prisoner population is highest in New Jersey but also significant in Florida. Their crimes run the gamut, from white-collar to robbery and murder. Yet “even though they may have made a mistake, there is hope,” Lipskar said.

While squaring away last-minute details for Yom Kippur services — Aleph organizes rabbis in other states to attend prisons and flies out local rabbis when needed — Lipskar and his colleagues also spent Thursday getting a head start on Sukkot. The weeklong holiday that begins Sept. 22 celebrates the harvest and recalls the labors of ancient Israelites, who wandered the wilderness after being freed from slavery and lived in temporary huts, or sukkahs.

At Aleph, volunteers made packages of small plastic-wrapped palm fronds, leaves and etrog, a citrus fruit, all used during Sukkot.

The organization, which distributes items including Hebrew calendars and a monthly journal with news and psalm readings as well as books and videos on Jewish traditions for prison wardens and converts, operates year-round, although the High Holy Days is one of its busiest times. Another: Passover, when it sends 50,000 pounds of kosher food to prisons.

Aleph also has several pro-bono lawyers tasked with advocating for more religious accommodation in prisons.

In addition, the group works with the families of those incarcerated or serving in the military, and advocates on behalf of non-Jews on occasion. But at its core, the simple acts define the work of Aleph.

For hours every day, Karen Harrold picks up phone calls from distressed families and friends of prisoners and those serving abroad, offering advice and listening to concerns. When she’s not on the phone, she’s typing replies to dozens of letters and e-mails that pour in daily.

“It’s a good feeling to let somebody know they are not alone, that we are here for them,” Harrold said.

PRISON SERVICES

In his e-mail box on Thursday, Rabbi Yossi Stern — who will lead prayers for about 50 Jews at two federal prisons in South Miami-Dade for a Yom Kippur prison service — received an emergency appeal. A Jewish inmate at a New York federal prison needed two extra rabbis to be sent for Friday’s service. Otherwise there would be no minyan, the minimum of 10 men required for a prayer service.

Stern shuffled through a spreadsheet, furrowing his brow, thinking about how he could rearrange schedules to make sure the man could have proper prayers.

“I always tell inmates that they are in a very special predicament. Yom Kippur is a time when a Jew does an accounting of his soul. What good did you accomplish? What can you fix for the next year?” Stern said. “Inmates, they do this every day.”