Season Offers Kindness to the Confined

Their days, for the most part, are filled with darkness.

There’s the grandfather who awaits surgery for his broken hip and longs for the giggles of his grandchildren. There’s the mother who developed a brain tumor and is now confined to her bed at the nursing home for her final hours.

There’s the tormented father at the county jail who every Hanukkah harbors more regret for the sins that separated him from his family.

For Jewish families across the world, Hanukkah, the eight-day Festival of Lights that begins tonight, evokes laughter and a sense of family.

Theologically, it is a minor holiday--far less important than days such as Yom Kippur in the fall or Passover in the spring. Yet for many Jews, particularly the large number who have few ties to traditional religious observance, Hanukkah has associations with family and celebration that far outweigh other festivals.

And for the sick and imprisoned, the holiday season means only more loneliness.

But for the past 30 years, Jewish patients and prisoners in Los Angeles craving companionship and spiritual nourishment have found comfort through an expanding chaplaincy program that delivers Hanukkah to them.

The Southern California Board of Rabbis’ Chaplaincy Commission is funded by the Jewish Federation and includes 25 rabbis from all branches of Judaism who provide Hanukkah services, as well as regular visits to 48 institutions, from hospitals and nursing homes to county jails and federal prisons.

Jewish inmates represent only 1% of California’s prison population, or about 1,500 out of more than 150,000 prisoners statewide. Those small numbers only compound the immense feeling of isolation, said Rabbi Gilbert Kollin, president of the Board of Rabbis and chair of the Chaplaincy Commission.

“Jewish inmates are a definite minority existing in a very violent culture,” said Kollin. “Prison is a scary place. To the extent that we can provide a siddur or prayer book or come together for a religious activity, we send a signal that the prisoner is still part of the Jewish community.”

Rabbi Aaron Kriegel of Temple Ner Maarav in Encino, who has served as chaplain at the Federal Detention center for 10 years, said feelings of depression and regret naturally rise during Hanukkah.

“This is the time they truly feel sorry for what they have done,” he said.

The acting director of chaplaincy, Rabbi E. Robert Kraus, relates to the program’s purpose through personal experience. His own mother was diagnosed with a malignant tumor and lay helpless in a nursing home bed for the last Hanukkah of her life.

“When people are institutionalized, no matter how well they’re treated, it’s still stealing someone from their home,” said Kraus. “A lot of people feel abandoned, as if they’ve lost control. They start thinking how different their lives are now than they were before.”

Chaplains attempt to rekindle the lost hope.

Rabbi Martin Ryback, who has ministered to about 55 Jewish inmates at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles since 1975, said his purpose is to give Jewish inmates spiritual support as they straighten out their lives.

“I’ve talked to murderers, and they just go to pieces when they realize what they’ve done,” Ryback said. “I’m not here to endorse what they’ve done. I’m here so they don’t lose their sense of humanity. They need to feel human.”

The Jewish chaplaincy program started out small in the 1950s with rabbis visiting county facilities and eventually expanded to nursing homes, then hospitals. This year, the Board of Rabbis proposed a grant to train lay people for the program, to meet the growing needs of the sick and the incarcerated. Much of that includes requests for holiday services and kosher food.

Hanukkah marks the victory by a small band of Jewish fighters called the Maccabees who reclaimed the temple of Jerusalem from Syrians almost 2,000 years ago.

According to legend, when the Jews prepared to light the temple’s flame, they found what they thought was enough oil for one day. Instead, it lasted eight. Today, Jews celebrate by lighting one candle on each of the eight evenings of the holiday.

At the Men’s Central Jail on Monday night, Rabbi Ryback will hold Hanukkah services, filling the dark cells with the light of the menorah. Afterward, Ryback said, Jewish inmates are treated to a taste of home with latkes, the potato pancakes traditionally eaten during the Jewish holiday season.

Rabbi Mika Weiss will conduct a similar service Tuesday morning for about 20 Jewish inmates at Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

Across the city at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Rabbi Levi Meier has a larger ministry, overseeing one of the nation’s most comprehensive hospital chaplaincy programs. Of the 1,100 patients at the hospital--which is a secular institution but was founded as a Jewish hospital--he estimates that more than 50% are Jewish.

To accommodate the population, Rabbi Meier said, weekly services as well as the Hanukkah ceremony are broadcast for the bedridden on the hospital’s closed-circuit television system.

Meier said during Hanukkah the chaplain’s duties become more difficult because the season sparks childhood memories of happier times that can’t be replicated. Still, he finds the job gratifying, as people shed the masks they wear for the outside world and reveal to him their true selves.

“I feel it’s a great privilege to do this,” he said. “I’m inspired. Big time. Do you know what it’s like to be in a bed for 24 hours or wake to find your hands tied down? All the patients are heroes to me.”

Rabbi Meier said his calling reminds him of a story about Moses. When Moses was a shepherd, one of the lambs stopped for a drink. Meier said that when Moses saw the sheep, he said that if he had known the lamb was thirsty, he would have carried it in his arms and taken it to quench its thirst.

Moses put that one sheep ahead of the rest of the flock, Meier said.

“Society is measured in the way it cares for its sick and needy,” he said, “and I think we have a long way to go.”