Story of the Day
"Beneath the
Layers of Fifth"
Being
easily identifiable as a Jew in one of Michigan's prisons isn't always the
smartest thing to do since it makes the person a perfect target for every bigot
with an attitude. I know. I am an incarcerated Jew who wears a
kippah (skullcap), beard and tallit katan (a small under-shirt with ritual
fringes attached) despite the inevitable heckling such attire draws.
Several years ago,
at a weekly Torah study group, the prison's chaplain allowed me to lead. A
new participant arrived late - one who I immediately knew wasn't Jewish.
In our little group he stood out like a piglet among puppies. It wasn't
that our group was exclusively Jewish either. We had men from several
other faiths. It was his closely cropped hair and numerous tattoos
displaying swastikas and other Nazi-like memorabilia that quieted our group and
set him apart from us.
After a moment or
two of staring at one another, he dropped his gaze to the carpet and asked in a
barely audible voice whether or not he could join us for the evening. To
say that I was shocked is an understatement, but I recovered quickly enough so I
didn't gawk at him too long before rising and inviting him to take a seat across
from me. What followed is something I would never have expected from
within a prison's hard, cold walls.
Although it shames
me today, I didn't treat Ron very well that first night. I could only see
the symbols that had doomed six million of my people to their horrible deaths.
Whether following my lead or through revulsion of their own, none of the other
members tried to engage Ron in conversation, leaving him very alone in an
otherwise crowded room. The next week was a repetition of the first.
Prior to the third
session, Ron asked for a minute of the group's time.
"By now you're
probably wondering why I'm here," Ron said in his quiet voice, fixing his
gaze firmly on the tabletop. "I'm here to change. I'm here to
learn how to stop hating others...to stop hating myself."
Ron then spent the
next half hour pouring out his heart to us about how he'd grown up in a
dysfunctional, racist family in California, gotten busted for hate-related
burglaries and ended up in some of California's toughest prisons, where he
became a fervent member of the Aryan Brotherhood. After earning a delayed
parole, Ron came to Michigan to escape his past, only to wind up falling back
into his old patterns of behavior — a decision that led to his present
incarceration. When Ron finished, he looked up. There were tears
flowing down his cheeks. It was at that point that our group was forever
changed.
We spent the first
portion of each session over the next few months working with Ron, challenging
his beliefs and exploring his reasons for wanting to change. It was a
difficult task and one that I frequently thought he'd abandon. Ron
continued to take great emotional and physical risks to come to terms with the
things he'd done.
I knew Ron wasn't
the same man I'd first met when he started walking the yard with me - an act
that publicly shouted Ron's renunciation of hate to those who once counted him
among their bigoted elite. To his credit, Ron silently withstood his
ex-friends' taunts and continued seeking new ways to improve himself.
Eventually, when
our entire group was satisfied that Ron wasn't pulling some type of elaborate
con game, we pooled our money and paid to have Ron's tattoos covered up by one
of the prison's best illegal artists. We also put him in touch with
several outreach organizations and convinced him to help others who were blindly
stumbling down his old path.
Ron had come to our
group seeking positive change. He found it. He also became a person
I am proud to call a friend. Ron, however, also changed me. He
renewed my waning belief in mankind's ability to overcome its senseless hatred -
to find its goodness buried beneath layers of encrusted filth. From this
one individual, and from within an openly hostile environment, dozens have
learned acceptance of that which is different. I will go to my grave
knowing few greater accomplishments.