Needed: A Jewish Response to Mass Incarceration
I am a formerly incarcerated Jewish lesbian and the child of two Holocaust survivors. I served time in two federal prisons, including stints in solitary confinement.
On the first day of my incarceration, I requested and was given a Siddur — a Jewish prayer book. By the second day, I began saying the Sh’ma prayer over and over every day. It took no more than a few seconds to realize why I was repeating the Sh’ma and holding the prayer book. A story my father told me came to mind immediately.
In 1940, after the Nazis conquered Poland and came to power, a Jew carrying a Siddur, a tallit, and tefillin could be shot. Still, my father took his velvet pouch, which held his siddur, tallit and tefillin, to work. A Nazi stopped him, saw the items and decided to make an example of him.
The Nazi summoned other Jews to watch as he beat my father. Summoning his strength and faith, my father looked up to G-d and said, “if you let me live, I will honor you every day through prayer.”
He survived 12 labor and concentration camps and was liberated at Dachau in 1945.
As a three-year-old child, I would watch my father prepare to pray. When he put the leather straps around his arm, I ran…
