If you read further, I promise a story you will never forget.
Let me introduce myself. Also, why I want to write this.
My name is Rabbi Fishel (Philip) Jacobs. I am American born and
educated (University of Vermont 1979), yeah, that makes me 44.
I’ve been working as an officer, I’m a Major, with the Israeli
Prison Service for 7 years. I’m a prison rabbi.
Why am I writing this? First, I like the guy running this web page.
He’s cool. More so, my job is so important, my experiences so exotic, I gambled
writing this up, hoping he’d add it.
Let’s get down to it. What do I do all day?
My day begins at 7:30 a.m. I’m standing in a 4 by 6 yard room, full
with rows of long narrow tables and benches. The white walls are lined with
shelves and books; the built-in air-conditioned pumps quietly does it’s job.
I’m not alone; over thirty men, aged 20-40+, surround me. These are prisoners;
this, our prison-cell synagogue. It’s morning services.
Prayer means something different for each of these men. For one it
revolves around his present court case; for another, his waiting family’s well
being; for others, hopes for transferal to a “good” prison.
As their rabbi, I know my job is not at all what people think. Most,
maybe yourself included, think my job is mainly teacher; or, ensuring that the
kitchen is “kosher.”
I strongly disagree.
My main job, what Really matters, is: Keeping up the spirits of
those under me.
I’ll illustrate.
It’s 8:30 a.m. Services have ended. I’ve seated myself in the corner
of our cell-synagogue. I wait, drinking a cup of coffee prepared by one of my
students, ostensibly reading, but, really, waiting for the conversations.
Joseph approaches. “Rabbi. Can I ask something?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how long it will be before I’m transferred to my final prison?”
His faces expresses deep anxiety.
“Usually, about two weeks.”
“Oh,” he mumbles.
“Where are you from?” I ask.
“Tel Aviv.”
“Have you been assigned a prison yet?”
“No.”
I already know what’s worrying him. He’s from central Israel and afraid he’ll
be assigned a prison up north or down south. This will make visiting difficult
or impossible for his already stressed-out family.
This is Joseph’s first incarceration. The story: He was supporting his
non-working wife, six kids, elderly mother and bedridden mother-in-law on the
income of a floundering paper-goods store. Paying the accountant wasn’t
possible five years ago, let alone income tax; landing him a slap-on-the-hand
six month sentence.
He’s terribly embarrassed, of course, to have to sit. It would be salt on the
wound being assigned a prison far away. What would happen on visiting days? His
wife, simply, doesn’t have bus money.
“I’ll have a word with the committee,” I commit. I know the members personally.
Family people themselves, I know they’ll do their best to help out.
Just hearing that I’ll try to help, Joseph leaves relieved. I’ve just lowered
the tension-level by one decibel.
9:00 a.m. David approaches.
“Got a minute?”
“Yes. Sit down.”
This is a rough one. No. He’s taking this term in stride. It’s his fifth.
David, 46, is another product of bad neighborhoods. In my seven years, I’ve met
so many Davids, I can repeat their collective story by rote: Father, dead at
young age (alcoholic, a kidney failure; heart attack); mother, impoverished,
overburden with too many kids, too distraught to even imagine any discipline.
From twelve years of age, truant, the kid is hanging out in the streets of his
poor drug-ridden neighborhood in bad company. No money, no supervision, they
steal to get shoes, food and clothes.
Trouble with the law follows. So does over twenty years in and out of prison.
And, this conversation.
“Rabbi, can you help?”
“What can I do for you?”
“My son is getting married. I don’t know if they’ll let me attend. And, if they
do, if I can go without handcuffs. It would be terribly embarrassing...”
The thought breaks my heart. I hold the tears back, thinking: A man, whatever
he did, at 46, in prison, contemplating his firstborn son’s wedding, in doubt
whether he will be allowed to attend with or without handcuffs...
I ask a few questions concerning what category his present terms falls under,
how long it is for and when the wedding is supposed to be. I already calculate
that he’s got no chance, but don’t want to be the one to break it to him. We
talk. I tell some jokes, try to break the heaviness. It works, and he figures
there’s a reason. When he’s finally told, a week later, he’ll be more ready. I
did what I could.
So continues the next hour. Inmate after inmate. I’m trying my
best...
I leave this ward and enter Ward X. Ward X is a closed ward, meaning
the prisoners are confined to their cells except for a two hour daily outing to
the prison courtyard for exercise. Inmates, first arriving, enter this ward
until proving themselves clean from drugs, then get moved up to better
conditions.
Here, I take my time. I enter the cells, sit, talk. My presence is
needed here; a smile is needed here.
I’m greeted by the guard.
“Rabbi.”
“Yes.”
“There’s a fellow in cell 23 who asked to see you.”
I can already sense a tough conversation coming up.
In his room, a cell similar to hundreds of others, Joel sits facing me across a
small table. The door remains open, but during our conversation we are alone.
“I never met my mother,” Joel said. “I never met my real brothers and sisters
either. We moved here from France and my father was a building contractor. He
built half of Holon (central Israel). But after my birth he divorced my mother
or she left, he never really told me.
“While I was still young he remarried and had some kids. But then, he had a
brain clot, became paralyzed and we became desperately poor. I had to take to
the streets to look for food. I scrounged through garbage to find it.”
Joel’s bright shining eyes and warm smile made the conversation effortless. At
23 he was still young. His being in a special ward prohibited from mingling
with other prisoners gave me a vaguely uncomfortable feeling.
“My father, incapacitated from his condition, couldn’t sustain even a minimal
home. I had to sleep in cardboard boxes under the sky, in parks, in the street.
“I never stole anything, or anything like that. Over the years, I sold little
things I came across. Later, I did odd jobs and then began to work. I worked in
a factory during the day, at night I made money doing other things.”
“Eventually I got married and we had a daughter. But my wife had a car accident
and became paralyzed. The social worker assigned to us classified my wife and I
incapable of taking care of our daughter. We had no family to turn to, so they
decided to take her from us.
“Crazy. Just me trying my best to make some money, to feed my wife and
daughter, and all of a sudden I’m forced into fighting against the whole
system—just to keep my own daughter! You know you can’t fight the government.
They told me to go to this office to file papers, and then they’d send me to
another office for a signature, back and forth. I couldn’t keep working and
fighting the system.
“The only thing I have in this world is my wife and daughter.”
I sensed his coming to an unpleasant punch line. This is how prisoners build up
justifications, “explaining” their past history, then telling you what they
did.
My stomach started to churn.
“Yes, never having met my real mother, brothers or sisters and being thrown to
the streets to scrounge for my survival at a young age, the only things I
really have in life is my wife, who became disabled, and the daughter who the
social worker decided to take away from us.”
“Okay, so what did you do, I mean why are you here?” I finally ask.
“Well, when I saw that I was being sent aimlessly from one government office to
the next and the social worker decided to give my daughter to a foster family,
I killed her.”
“What?”
He detailed the murder, which included dismemberment.
As he continued, I felt like I was in the front car of the largest roller
coaster in America. I felt disgusted, amazed, nauseous and speechless all at
once.
“What did you gain?! I mean, doing something like that wasn’t going to bring
your daughter back.”
“I don’t know. I heard from other people in the city that the old buzzard took
a lot of kids from their parents. Everyone told me it was a good thing I did to
get rid of her. Besides, she deserved it, all I have in this world is my wife
and daughter.”
After diverting my thoughts to the World Series, memories of skiing in Vermont
and allowing my stomach to readjust, I finally gained enough composure to
continue the conversation.
“Now, what do you want?”
“Well, my wife is thinking of a divorce. I haven’t been sentenced yet. She told
me she still loves me and doesn’t really want a divorce. Only if I get a life
sentence she wants a divorce.”
“I think that sounds reasonable,” I say, images of the old social worker
hanging from the ceiling flashing in the back of my mind. My stomach aches.
“She is all I have to live for. If I don’t have my daughter or my wife and no
family visits me or cares, what do I have to live for? I’ll just kill myself
here.”
I knew he was serious. (Note: during the week following this conversation he
attempted suicide twice.)
“Now, rabbi, you’ve heard my whole story. Tell me...” At this point, he’s dead
serious and I know I won’t have an answer for the next question. I’ve heard it
before, can feel when it’s coming, and know I have no answer for it.
“Tell me, will G-d forgive me? And, if not, what can I do to get Him to forgive
me?”
***
It’s 11:30. In need of an emotional break, I decide to visit the kitchen and
check up on my men.