A o

Jewish inmates
in Michigan
are keeping the faith.

JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER

THE DETR OIT JEWI SH NEW S

PHOTOS BY GLENN TRIEST

50

any Whitney likens
the place to a concen-
tration camp.
"They turned it into
Auschwitz. They didn't
use to have all the
fences. They had less
trouble then," he says
indignantly of his
home of 30 years, the State Prison of
Southern Michigan at Jackson.
Mr. Whitney, 64, is sitting in the only
cheerful place on the grounds of the Jack-
son complex, a grid of drab buildings an-

chored by looming guard towers. Shiny
concertina wire loops around high metal
fences like deadly bracelets. A gray sky
clings to the prison like a shroud.
A turquoise wall of the Jewish sanctu-
ary, housed within a church a few yards
away from the solitary confinement build-
ing, is imprinted with a white chai and
Star of David. On the other side of the
room is an ark and two electric menorahs.
Legend has it that members of the infa-
mous Purple Gang financed the sanctu-
ary.
Mr. Whitney's tattooed arms are fold

-

ed across his massive chest. His yellow-
tinted eyeglasses match his knitted orange
and red yarmulke. A thin, gray ponytail
grazes the back of his T-shirt.
Sentenced to life in prison in 1967 for
first-degree murder, he's been around
longer than most. And in this sanctuary,
where a dozen inmates gather every Sat-
urday afternoon for services and classes
with Rabbi Allen Ponn, his eminence is
obvious.
Mr. Whitney is a self-styled guardian
of the faith, filing lawsuits on behalf of re-
ligious freedom and checking out the au-

thenticity of new inmates who claim to be
Jewish.
"You know just talking to them for a few
seconds. I ask if they like bagels and they
say 'Yes.' Then I ask if they like bris and
they say Yes.' And I know," he says to rau-
cous laughter from the inmates gathered.
around him in the sanctuary.
"You know who is [Jewish] and who
isn't. It's sort of an instinct you have," says