/ 24 March 2000

Rabbis play it low-key

Rodney Victor

Jewish leaders are scrambling to avoid involvement in a row over the food given to Jews in prisons after an awaiting-trial inmate at Pretoria Central Prison complained that Jewish prisoners are offered halaal food prepared for Muslims instead of kosher fare.

Rabbi Michael Katz of Chabad House in Johannesburg said he is aware of the problem, and that it is not a new problem.

Prisoners who reject standard prison fare are allowed to eat either vegetarian or halaal food, he said. Neither is ideal, but at least these choices iron out some of the problems.

“Fortunately,” he adds, “there are very few Jews in prison.”

Dennis Levy of the Jewish welfare organisation Chevra Kadisha said many of the Jews in prison don’t actually require kosher food. “And if they do, it’s because they don’t like prison food.”

In any case, he said, it is almost impossible to prepare kosher food in prison and security concerns make it difficult to bring it in from outside.

Rabbi Ron Hendler sounds a mildly dissenting note: if a prisoner wants kosher food he should be entitled to it in terms of the new Constitution. “But it’s almost embarrassing for us to make a huge fuss about this,” he admits. “We’d prefer to play it low-key.”

Correctional Services representative Russel Mamabolo said he is not aware of the problem. “I’m sure if they put in a request, their food would be prepared in whatever way they wanted. At Pollsmoor Prison the Muslims wanted their food to be stored separately from other food, and even though it was difficult, we accommodated them,” he said.

People against Gangsterism and Drugs supporters awaiting trial at Pollsmoor prison recently went on a hunger strike to complain about the lack of “decent halaal food”. In a statement, they complained that the food was prepared in unsanitary conditions by fellow prisoners not skilled in the art of halaal food preparation.