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78 Friday, May 2, 1986
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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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NEWS
Prisons Settle Battle
Over 'Who Is A Jew'
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idea of testing the inmates to
discern whether they were Jews,
on grounds that this is against
Jewish law except when some-
one is about to marry. Smith, as
well as Rabbi Ted Sanders, the
Jewish chaplain for the state
prison system, later testified in
court to this effect.
Turned down by the two rab-
bis, the prison officials called
upon Dr. David Geigerman, a
Texarkana anesthesiologist who
served at the time as president
of the local B'nai B'rith chapter.
Geigerman spoke with the nine
or 10 inmates in the kosher pro-
gram for several minutes, said
Roach, asking them to translate
some Hebrew and provide infor-
mation on several Jewish festi-
vals. He concluded that none of
them were Jewish.
. Geigerman later testified in
court that, had he been informed ,
that to be eligible for the kosher'
food program a prisoner did not
have to be knowledgeable about
Judaism or to have kept kosher
before applying for it, he would
not have acted as he did, Roach
said.
After Geigerman reached his
decision, prison officials re-
moved the inmates from the'
kosher food program and it
became "inoperative," said
Roach; it was resumed later
however. The prison stipulated
that if the inmates wanted bo be
considered Jews, they would
have to take religion classes
from Geigerman.
Such state-sponsored religion
classes are unconstitutional, as
is the government being involv-
ed in determining who is
member of a religious faith.
The terms of the settlement
the "consent decree"— requires.
the fedefal Bureau of Prisons to
send a directive to every one of,
its facilities in the U.S. stating;
that before any inmate can be
declared ineligible for the kosher;
food program because he is not2,
Jewish, the prison officials must;
consult with a rabbi and give the
rabbi's opinion great weight.
"
1 Gentlemen:
I NAME
New York (JTA) — The Fed-
eral Bureau of Prisons has
recently agreed, after a lengthy
legal battle, that the question of
"Who is a Jew"— and thus eligi-
ble for kosher food — will not be
determined by prison officials,
but by religious authorities. It
will send a directive to this ef-
fect to all prisons in the federal
system.
The action came about as a
result of a court case triggered
when prison officials at the
Federal Correctional Institution
at Texarkana, Tex., decided that
none of the participants in the
kosher food program were Jews,
and removed them from the pro-
gram, in effect, dosing it down.
One of the then-inmates, Clif-
ford Noe, sued the prison sys-
tem on grounds that his First
Amendment rights were vio-
lated. Robert Roach, Jr., of
Mayor, Day and Caldwell of
Houston, represented Noe on a
pro bono basis.
Federal prison system regula-
tions, arising out of 1976 court
cases, mandate that inmates are
entitled to full kosher meals
within 15 days of signing a
statement that they are Jews
and request such food, said
Roach.
Noe, he said, was admitted to
the kosher food program at Tex-
arkana prison in 1979. The next
year, he made several com-
plaints to the warden: one was
that the prison had inadequate
facilities for keeping kitchen
equipment, used to prepare
kosher food, clean; another was
that the food — cheese, frank-
furters and sardines was not
comparable to that served to
non-kosher inmates.
Prison officials, however,
responded only to Noe's third
complaint: that non-Jews were
in the kosher food program.
Deciding to determine "who is
a Jew," prison officials turned to
a local Texarkana rabbi, and
later, to Rabbi Uriel Smith of
Shreveport, La. (1
Both rabbis turned
the
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1 year - $21 --- 2 years - $39 — Out of State - $23 — Foreign - $35
Enclosed $
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I.
enter the garden tomb, the burial
place of Jesus according to Prn-
testaiitAiadition. The same
caliber bullet murdered an Is-
raeli ,businesswoman, Zehavia
Ben-OVadiain her office near
the -DamasOis, .Gate on April 13:
The ins4cIti are also believed
to , have wounded , an American
Jewilh.,tourist, David Blumen
_ fizi1;4,44914.City last March 7
and. a German woman , tourist on
April16.z.
Blumenfeld; a Conservative
rabbi from Long Island, is execii-
' tive: direttetrO:the New York
City Holocaust :Memorial Cora-
Inisaitiallle was shot in the heacl.
iiii-difinan woman sustained a
:131ightf8dnalilder wound as she ana
her jiiland were entering a
of his skull as he was about to Christian shrine in the Old City.
Tel Aviv (JTA) — Security
sources announced the arrest of
the terrorist who, fatally shot
British tourist Paul APpelbY -in
the Old City of Jerusalem Sun-
day and who may be responsible
for at least one other murder and
two attempted murders of
tourists there during the past two
months.
The suspects were said to be-
long to the Abu Mousse faction of
the Palestine LiberationOrgan-
ization which broke . away from
the mainstream PLO headed by
Yasir Arafat and is repertedly,
backed by Syria: A Jerusalem
magistrate court ;banned , the re- -
lease of further details.
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