Rabbi: When religious freedom stops at the prison gate

By Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman

Calgary Herald - October 12, 2012

 

Vic Toew - Public Safety Minister

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ decision to cancel the contracts of all non-Christian prison chaplains can only be described as unusually cruel and short-sighted. As a rabbinical student in Cincinnati, Ohio, I served as a student rabbi for a small congregation in rural Arkansas. In addition to leading services and teaching, I was expected to visit with and counsel a Jewish inmate in the state penitentiary. The inmate had been convicted of rape and first-degree murder and, in accordance with the Arkansas penal code, would be in jail for the rest of his life.

He said that as the only Jewish person in the facility, the Christian chaplains often came by his cell to offer prayers or words of comfort. But he told me that he sent them away, explaining that the chaplains did not understand his life as a Jew, and that their prayers meant nothing to him. He told me that he wasn’t a particularly religious man, but he wanted “to talk to a landesman (a fellow Jew).” And so, on the few visits I was able to make, we talked about his life and we studied the Torah. As far as I could tell, I was his only visitor.

Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman

As a religious leader, I am particularly grateful for our community’s chaplains, who selflessly meet the spiritual needs of our most neglected citizens; the sick, the aged, the mentally ill and the imprisoned. They work under the most difficult conditions and receive little credit or thanks (not to mention pay) for the services they provide. Indeed, unless you are a relative or a dear friend of the person in need, a chaplain’s service is all but invisible. But to those people in need — particularly prisoners who have reached the nadir of their existence — a prison chaplain is a lifeline towards possibility and hope.

I feel confident that Toews shares these sentiments. But experience and common sense suggest that in the case of prison chaplains (and most other spiritual needs), one size does not fit all. Prison inmates, by definition, are a captive audience, and are particularly receptive to religious teachings of redemption and healing. However, this does not mean that any religious message will suffice. Indeed, Christian theology — especially its teachings about sin and forgiveness — are vastly different from Jewish beliefs, and would, in all likelihood, ring false to a Jewish inmate.

And while I cannot speak for Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists or First Nations people, my religious experience suggests that their spiritual needs could not be effectively met by Christian chaplains, who neither share their theology nor their cultural or historical narrative.

While it is true that the majority of federal inmates (57 per cent) identify themselves as Christian, this does not mean that all of the inmates will benefit from, or seek out, an entirely Christian experience. We must remember that a significant minority of non-Christian inmates will require non-Christian chaplains, capable of offering them religious teachings that are relevant, not only to their lives in prison, but also to their future lives out in the world.

In explaining Toews’ decision, his office said that “the government … is not in the business of picking and choosing which religions will be given preferential status through government funding.” But, of course, in employing only chaplains of the Christian faith, the government is precisely in the business of choosing only one religion — Christianity — to meet the needs of inmates of all faiths.
A Jewish friend of mine has a son who is currently serving time in a Canadian prison. He is the only Jewish inmate in the facility, and several months ago, at his request, I sent a copy of the Torah so that he would be able to engage in traditional Jewish study. In Toews’ world, this young man has been sentenced, not just for his crime, but also to solitude and isolation in his own faith. He won’t be visited by a Jewish chaplain, nor will any other religious minority be visited by a chaplain of their own faith.

Surely, we are all proud of the extraordinary religious freedom we have in our nation. And we know how much our religious freedom contributes to the vitality and diversity found in Canadian life. But sadly, such religious freedom appears to stop at the jailhouse door. Let us hope Toews reverses this unfortunate decision, and restores non-Christian chaplains to Canada’s federal prisons. While Christian chaplains may be sufficient to meet the spiritual needs of Christian inmates, they are hardly adequate to meet the needs of inmates who believe or worship differently.

Howard Voss-Altman is rabbi of Calgary’s Temple B’nai Tikvah.