• . .04.10P-.411•-••••••••••••47..... 78 Friday, May 2, 1986 • • . coy._ . _ • ne . „ - • .•-• •‘ ■ .. - • — • . . • THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS • 'k NEWS Prisons Settle Battle Over 'Who Is A Jew' ec, these are only a few of the features you'll find weekly in The Jewish News order a subscription or gift subscription today! • The Jewish News am= us am tisiesitliemaiii1•1111111111 ■ 11111111. • 20300 Civic Center Dr., Suite 240 Southfield, Mi. 48076-4138 Israel Arrests Terrorists Who Shot British Tourist I Please send a (gift) subscription: is••••••••••••• ADDRESS CITY STATE . From: I If gift state occasion I 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 • • • '• 7 • s • .... . 1 year - $21 --- 2 years - $39 — Out of State - $23 — Foreign - $35 Enclosed $ - 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. ealAibpeprelbbuy, ll2, a8 fira w ecititxklhby i0 14.24