The table is set. The candles are alight, the becher is shining, and the fresh loaves of challah are peeking out from under the embroidered cover. Around the table, a family gathers to begin the Shabbos meal.
Yet, for a population of Jews who are often forgotten, Friday nights look starkly different. Their room is dark and dreary and their Shabbos table is a hard metal bench in a prison cell, where they sit alone with their head in their hands and wonder if they can ever do better.
Each week, there are Jews spending Shabbos behind bars. They are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters—these people are our brothers and sisters, no matter how many mistakes they made. Yanky* spent almost four decades in prison, week in and week out, before Shabbos changed for him. The Aleph Institute, an organization dedicated to helping those affected by incarceration, sent a package of challah. “I savored every morsel, and made the blessing with all my heart,” Yanky said. “The last time I had a piece of Challah was 38 years ago.”
The Jewish community in a Minnesota prison was thrilled when the first challah delivery arrived. “We received the Challah bread. The congregation treated it like manna from heaven. Please know all the hard work you do for each of us is truly appreciated!”
In your home, you may never think twice about the loaves of challah piled on the table. In prison, each slice is a welcomed miracle—a mix of sanctity, joy, tradition, and renewal.
In fact, everything holds a different value in prison. Most people don’t have income–their families are destitute and prison jobs earn 20 cents an hour–so most people can’t afford to buy things like soap or shampoo from the prison commissary.
The requests for commissary help from our fellow brothers and sisters behind bars come in to Aleph’s offices daily—in the mail, through the internet and via phone calls. All these forgotten souls are asking for money toward is their basic needs like hygiene items, shoes, warm clothing, snacks, phone minutes, postage stamps and email time to contact outside families. “…It is getting hotter and I stay sweating I need the basic hygiene products as I no longer have any deodorant left or soap,” one man wrote.
One man haltingly asked Aleph for a stamped envelope so he could send a letter home.
When asked how much he really needed, he mustered up the courage to ask for $10 to buy shower shoes.
Instead, Aleph sent him a significant stipend to cover his basic needs; it’ll last him a good while and he’ll have the security of knowing there’s something, and someone, there.
His allowance is one of the hundreds that Aleph gives each month. When Avraham* saw that money had been added to his account, he went back to his cell and started dancing. Finally! He could afford shampoo and soap—as well as stamps to send letters to his children back home. When another man incarcerated Kazakhstan was shivering through the cold winters, Aleph was thank Gd able to use the commissary fund and send warm clothing. The package allowed him to bundle up against the biting cold and made his horrifying situation a little more bearable.
As one recipient of a deposit emailed, “I don’t even know how to begin to thank you for yo[u]r acts of kind[n]ess. … To be able to purchase dental foss, deodorant, shampoo, not to mention the occasional sweet of cup of coffee, these are truly blessings from hashem. And we have this because of you.”
The challah deliveries and commissary stipends are a reminder that no one is alone or forgotten, and that a community is supporting people’s change. As one man wrote, “It touches the deepest part of my being, that it brings tears of cleansing that someone is concerned in reaching out to the so called rejects of society. It really has me focus not on all the bad that I’ve done in the past, but truthfully focus on now … to change my life.”
Combined, the challah and commissary programs cost more than $100,000 a year. Every penny fills a dire need and brings intense joy to thousands of people around the world. In these days before Rosh Hashanah, please take action on behalf of those who are struggling.
For the next 48 hours, Aleph is raising money to keep the gears of these important programs in action.
- Your $18 becomes $54 and provides one person’s monthly stipend…
- Your $30 becomes $90 and provides a week of challah for three facilities…
- Your $54 becomes $162 and provides three peoples monthly stipends…
- Your $75 becomes $250 and provides weekly challah for more than 7 facilities…
- Your $126 becomes $378 and provides 7 monthly stipends…
- Your $630 becomes $1890 and provides a month of challah for all 63 facilities currently enrolled in the program…
Through your mitzvos and Hashem’s help, people have the resources, support, and guidance to learn and grow. So when Shabbos comes around this week, know that in a lonely prison cell, another Jew is feeling supported by your compassion and Ahavas Yisroel. Please go to alephhope.org to become a partner.
Your ahavas yisroel allows people to take care of themselves at a time when they have no one—and lets them know that even behind bars, they are not alone or forgotten.
