Seeing New Faces and Making New Friends in Prison

We went to prison again Wednesday.

We woke up late, had to rush like mad. Didn’t even have breakfast.

On the way there we were briefed on who we’d be seeing. One guy sounded interesting. Apparently he made a huge fuss about the lack of kosher accommodations in the prisons. Because of him, they had to have all these meetings about it and eventually the whole system got kosher food. All thanks to him – and he’s not actually Jewish.

We arrived with Matzah, chocolate, gefilte fish (couldn’t bring it in – glass), and macaroons. Anything else? I don’t think so. We dropped them off buy the store. We asked about the location of the prisoners. One transferred. One we didn’t know the last name and he must have moved. Another transferred. So all we had was one Jew and another who thought he was a Jew (not the same guy – he transferred.)

We caused a bit of trouble I suppose. We met our Jewish guy. He didn’t want to put on Teffilin where others could see. We decided to get an escort to the chapel. A cute blond gal escorted us (because she would keep us so safe right?). We got to the chapel and then she remembered that he was not allowed to mix w/ the mainstream prisoners, or be left alone. She would have to lock us in the chapel. We didn’t have keys. I told her it would be super quick. Come on please. Alright. We went in. When she wasn’t looking we took down the cross and put it under the table and started to get out the Teffilin. Then another lady came not happy that this inmate was over here. Time to go. So close! Ok ok be right out. Go go go! Mrs Rubin went to speak while Adam and I finished up. Whew. We took him back to his unit. We forgot to put the cross back up.

Oops

We then had to pick up this panick-button necklace things (called a duress) for the unit we were going to. Just pull it off and it makes an insanely loud noise. Then I suppose you run around in circles for about two minutes till help arrives. Or maybe it just scares people. The whole time I wanted to pull it to see what would happen. We got into the protection unit where the rough prisoners resided. We had to sign in and Mrs. Rubin went up to the desk. We were immediately noticed by all the inmates. What ensued:

They all looked at us and an Arab guy started mock saluting us.

Then they all came over

“hey you salaam aleikem” two Arab guys said accompanied buy a few other inmates.

“aleikem salaam” I responded. I didn’t trust these dudes a bit, but I’m always going to be Joe Cool.

“hey wassup with you guys you Jewish right?”

“yep”

“cool man, hey,

You smoke pot?”

“naw man”

“haha all right I see. You coming from another prison?”

“nope just from around here”

“cool man” he crouches down and speaks a little more hushed,

“So you smoke pot?”

“No I told you I don’t. Why?”

“You know, maybe you could bring some next time. Hey you drink.”

“ya, what Jew doesn’t?”

“haha maybe you bring some huh man?”
“I don’t think that’d work”

“naw man they don’t pat you down do they? Huh?”

“ok we’ll see”

“so you really don’t smoke pot?”

We just humored them a bit. Asked us about American prisons and about us and whatnot. They wanted to wear Adam's hat. Na ah.

They told us their names we told them ours, they extended to shake hands. Ah what the heck.

I shook their hand through the bars. My arm was still their.

“aw man I like this guy. I don’t even know ‘im but I like this guy”

I guess I fit right in.

We met the guy. He seemed pretty intelligent. We spoke for a bit. I spoke about what leaving Egypt means for us today, that it meant going beyond the materialism that bogs us down. It was a nice visit. He spoke about how he was sticking to kosher-only food, he even works in the kitchen to insure it. Kosher was very important to him, interesting since he’s not actually Jewish. I think he knows he’s not Jewish, but I would know, you never know what can happen.

We then departed, munching on the extra chocolate we suddenly had.

It had nuts in it.

Yum