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      Kris Marker
      Keymaster

      While the Jewish population in prison is small, it’s hard for practicing Jews to go unnoticed. Chris Dankovich discusses the reasons behind antisemitism in prison.

      For many reasons, Jewish people in prison are often viewed as perpetual outsiders, and have often been the focus of attacks and abuse. In this racially charged environment, Jews generally are viewed as white by people of color in prison, and are viewed as non-white by white prisoners and staff. Jewish prisoners who openly follow their faith often wear a yarmulke, and often style their facial hair differently. This sets them apart from others further, in a dangerous place that disdains difference.

      This is a place where the six-pointed star seen on the Israeli flag is more widely known as the emblem of the Crips street gang. And American prisons are some of the last places on Earth where you regularly see swastikas and images of Hitler openly displayed with pride.

      About a year ago, Thumb Correctional Facility began its first Jewish services on Saturdays in two decades. (In Michigan, a religious group must have at least five members wanting to attend before that group can hold religious services.) Most members openly identify as Jewish, wearing yarmulke and tefillin, and meet in a room in the prison’s school building to pray and read from the Torah.

      I got to know Moishe when I had a class at the same time, and in the same area, as the Jewish services. Seeing him wearing his yarmulke, I approached him with a question regarding the Tanakh. I had previously taken a Hebrew class taught by another prisoner (which was eventually banned by a prison administrator who claimed that learning a foreign alphabet was just a way for us to communicate in code). We struck up a conversation and I began to get to know him as an individual. I learned about his rural upbringing, parts of his life, and the circumstances that brought him to prison. One day I commented that I respected his openly representing a religion not always accepted in this hostile environment.

      “I’ve been threatened merely because of how I look,” he responded. “I’ve been attacked by people who hated me for being Jewish but who didn’t know what ‘being Jewish’ even means. I’ve had my yarmulke knocked off my head for no reason. I’ve been punched for my faith. It is hard sometimes, yet this also makes me think that I am doing something good by holding to my faith.”

      Verbal Antisemitism

      Ever since the Jewish religious services started, rumors have swirled around the yard. A fundraiser proposed by the Inmate Benefit Fund prisoner representatives was denied by the prison administration. The reason on nearly every prisoner’s lips? The Jews. The rumor mill claimed the Jewish prisoners threatened a lawsuit because the fundraiser was not kosher, and if they couldn’t have a kosher meal then no one could have anything. (The proposed food item actually was kosher.)

      Last week, a movie requested to be shown on the prison’s in-house channel, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, was denied by the administration as well. Immediately, accusations blamed the Jews. The rumors claimed Jewish inmates protested a nude scene for violating their religion. (The real reason for the administration’s denial was that the movie involved a graphic act of sexual assault.) Hundreds of other prisoners have been quick to believe these rumors (albeit many prisoners believe nearly every rumor that they hear), and many have taken to taunting and cursing the Jewish population in prison whenever they walk by.

      Threats of Physical Hate

      In the book, Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul, my good friend Doug Burgess describes a moving experience when he, a practicing Jew, was confronted by a man with a prominent swastika tattoo who signed up for Jewish services. Thinking the man a bad actor, he and his fellow worshippers were tense and standoffish until the man approached them, confessing his remorse and seeking a way to move away from hate. The story culminated with the Jewish members donating money to pay a prison tattoo artist to cover the man’s swastika, and welcoming him to attend their services.

      Years later, Doug converted to Catholicism, and devoted his life to the study of scripture and learning Latin and ancient Hebrew, eventually earning a master’s degree in religious studies. (He taught the Hebrew class I mentioned above.) Nominated by the other Catholics to be the prisoner leader/representative for the service, he accepted. This did not sit well with the handful of neo-Nazis who had started attending the group as a place to hang out, and who wanted one of their members to be the service’s representative. They surrounded him on the yard one day, pulling knives, saying “once a Jew, always a Jew,” and that no Jew was going to represent them. Doug made it out with the help of some allies he had who saw what was going on and intervened.

      This type of thing is a regular experience in prison.

      The Israel-Hamas War

      Antisemitic attitudes have gotten worse in the prison system since the beginning of the recent Israel-Hamas War. (Commenting on the war itself is beyond the scope of this article.) Neo-Nazis have upped their rhetoric, yelling at Moishe and others that “Hitler should have finished the job.” Certain prisoners proclaiming Islam have vocally sided not only with Palestine, but specifically with Hamas, and have actively supported the group’s rape and murder of Jewish women and children last October. One of these prisoners simultaneously called one Jewish prisoner, who is American and has never been to Israel, a “baby killer” because of the Israeli raids on Gaza.

      Antisemitism is rife in prison. In many ways, prison is the incarnation of the dark unconscious of society itself, a symptom showing that antisemitism is, unfortunately, alive and well everywhere.


      Chris Dankovich #595904
      Thumb Correctional Facility
      3225 John Conley Drive
      Lapeer, MI 48446

      The post Antisemitism in Prison first appeared on Prison Writers.

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