My Turn: Contemplating freedom at a prison Passover seder
Saul Schacter of Sea Cliff with Rabbi Marshal Klaven in April 2012 outside Mississippi’s Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, where the rabbi led a Passover seder. Credit: Saul Schachter
When the rabbi and I arrived at Passover dinner in 2012, we were greeted warmly with hugs and handshakes — which might have seemed surprising since we were in Mississippi's Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, home to 2,500 inmates.
Rabbi Marshal Klaven, then 33, had become a familiar sight at the prison. In early 2010, he received an emergency call that a Jewish prisoner was threatening to take the life of his cell mate and his own. Klaven made the three-hour drive from home and defused the situation.
After that visit, the rabbi established a Jewish program, visiting four times a year: the High Holidays, Hannukah, Passover and in the summer.
“I listen to their concerns and complaints,” said Klaven. “I let them know that someone cares, that there are people who maintain hope in them, so that they should not give up hope on bettering their lives, themselves.”
When we arrived at the prison, a medium/maximum security facility, we had to remove our shoes and leave behind cameras. On our walk to the room where we were to meet, we didn't see any inmates because the prison was in lockdown. We were greeted by the chaplain, a round, jolly man in a bright gold suit.
There were 12 inmates who joined the Seder that day; we suspected some had come just to get a good meal. I didn’t learn about their individual crimes, but they had been incarcerated for violent offenses; most were due to be released in two to five years.
Among them was Tommy, mid-50s, who had just gotten out of the “hole” — four months of solitary confinement; he had been transferred from prison to prison for various transgressions.
There was Jeremy, 19, a burly kid who brightened when he spoke of his bar mitzvah, only six years earlier. Tommy and Jeremy were, I learned, in prison gangs.
The ponytailed Richie was in his early 40s, though because of apparent drug and alcohol abuse, he looked much older. He was argumentative, always writing complaint letters because, the rabbi said, “He has nothing else to do with his time.”
Klaven conducted the Passover service as he did on “the outside.” There were the “Four Questions,” the “Ten Plagues,” the singing of familiar songs (like “Dayanu”), the explanation of the foods on the seder plate: the shank bone, the egg, the bitter herbs.
It was an appropriate setting as Passover is about freedom and persevering with faith against the odds.
The rabbi peppered his audience with questions. I sat enthralled.
To my right sat the chef, Freddie, an inmate who had prepared the meal of salmon, salad and baked potato. Only the packaged blueberry muffins — a treat the inmates rarely see — were not particularly kosher for Passover.
The person I found most interesting, Oscar, 39, sat to my left. Born in Mexico, he had been in jail for 15 years and had two more to go. He and his former wife had married when they were 15 and quickly had four children. His marriage crumbled, he said, and he made “a bad decision” (I didn’t ask) in California and was sent to prison. The worst thing, Oscar said, “was seeing my mother’s face” at his sentencing.
But he had the support of his family (including five grandchildren), he said, unlike others who were abandoned — and lonely. And unlike others, Oscar said, he didn’t blame judges, lawyers or the system for his incarceration.
He told me how a while back, his son, then 15, had needed therapy. Oscar spoke often by telephone to the female therapist. Somewhere along the way they hit it off, and two weeks before our visit she had traveled to the prison and married Oscar.
Upon his release, he told me, he would be deported to Mexico because he was not a U.S. citizen when he was arrested.
I asked him if he was worried about not finding a job because of his prison record, but he smiled and said, “In Mexico, I don’t have a police record.”
Saul Schachter,
Sea Cliff
When the rabbi and I arrived at Passover dinner in 2012, we were greeted warmly with hugs and handshakes — which might have seemed surprising since we were in Mississippi's Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, home to 2,500 inmates.
Rabbi Marshal Klaven, then 33, had become a familiar sight at the prison. In early 2010, he received an emergency call that a Jewish prisoner was threatening to take the life of his cell mate and his own. Klaven made the three-hour drive from home and defused the situation.
After that visit, the rabbi established a Jewish program, visiting four times a year: the High Holidays, Hannukah, Passover and in the summer.
“I listen to their concerns and complaints,” said Klaven. “I let them know that someone cares, that there are people who maintain hope in them, so that they should not give up hope on bettering their lives, themselves.”
When we arrived at the prison, a medium/maximum security facility, we had to remove our shoes and leave behind cameras. On our walk to the room where we were to meet, we didn't see any inmates because the prison was in lockdown. We were greeted by the chaplain, a round, jolly man in a bright gold suit.
There were 12 inmates who joined the Seder that day; we suspected some had come just to get a good meal. I didn’t learn about their individual crimes, but they had been incarcerated for violent offenses; most were due to be released in two to five years.
Among them was Tommy, mid-50s, who had just gotten out of the “hole” — four months of solitary confinement; he had been transferred from prison to prison for various transgressions.
There was Jeremy, 19, a burly kid who brightened when he spoke of his bar mitzvah, only six years earlier. Tommy and Jeremy were, I learned, in prison gangs.
The ponytailed Richie was in his early 40s, though because of apparent drug and alcohol abuse, he looked much older. He was argumentative, always writing complaint letters because, the rabbi said, “He has nothing else to do with his time.”
Klaven conducted the Passover service as he did on “the outside.” There were the “Four Questions,” the “Ten Plagues,” the singing of familiar songs (like “Dayanu”), the explanation of the foods on the seder plate: the shank bone, the egg, the bitter herbs.
It was an appropriate setting as Passover is about freedom and persevering with faith against the odds.
The rabbi peppered his audience with questions. I sat enthralled.
To my right sat the chef, Freddie, an inmate who had prepared the meal of salmon, salad and baked potato. Only the packaged blueberry muffins — a treat the inmates rarely see — were not particularly kosher for Passover.
The person I found most interesting, Oscar, 39, sat to my left. Born in Mexico, he had been in jail for 15 years and had two more to go. He and his former wife had married when they were 15 and quickly had four children. His marriage crumbled, he said, and he made “a bad decision” (I didn’t ask) in California and was sent to prison. The worst thing, Oscar said, “was seeing my mother’s face” at his sentencing.
But he had the support of his family (including five grandchildren), he said, unlike others who were abandoned — and lonely. And unlike others, Oscar said, he didn’t blame judges, lawyers or the system for his incarceration.
He told me how a while back, his son, then 15, had needed therapy. Oscar spoke often by telephone to the female therapist. Somewhere along the way they hit it off, and two weeks before our visit she had traveled to the prison and married Oscar.
Upon his release, he told me, he would be deported to Mexico because he was not a U.S. citizen when he was arrested.
I asked him if he was worried about not finding a job because of his prison record, but he smiled and said, “In Mexico, I don’t have a police record.”
Saul Schachter,
Sea Cliff
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