Tales of the Unbound Episode 1: Jewish Enough
Tales of the Unbound: Episode 1 - "Jewish Enough" follows the stories of Ari and Josh, two men pursuing Jewish conversion while incarcerated. Despite facing obstacles and judgments, they find belonging and community within Judaism. The episode explores themes of identity, conversion, and belonging, shedding light on the challenges and joys of practicing Judaism behind bars. Through their journey, listeners witness the power of faith, resilience, and the pursuit of personal transformation. Join us on this heartfelt exploration of Judaism and the human spirit.
Show Notes
[1] Miriam mentions that Jewish conversion is forbidden by traditional Jewish conversion practices.
[2] Miriam briefly mentions that the guys were meeting for Shabbat. This mostly involved using prayerbooks without transliteration, guiding themselves through the service, and lighting electric candles. Amy changes all that—she brings in challah and juice, teaches them how to sing, and helps them navigate the meanings behind the ritual. But in the beginning, it’s just 3-5 men working their way through the prayerbook as best as possible.
[3] You’ll hear a lot more from (and about) Ari in episode 3, but he’s amazing. The first language he learned while incarcerated was German, inspired by an employee in another correctional facility who would practice with him. He never painted before in his life, but a mentor in a different prison took him under his wing and taught Ari. One trend you’ll notice is that Ari is a voracious learner, a true embodiment of learning for learning's sake. He wants to be an attorney and is currently studying law.
[4] Ari learns Hebrew by tapes and CDs. If you’re interested in learning on your own, check out this great book for adult learners , Aleph Isn’t Tough, or try out prayer karaoke, you can practice with just about any liturgy, this one is for the Shema prayer, which you hear Josh say during the conversion ritual.
[5] Josh is featured in episode 4. He’s super into support animals. He makes beaded jewelry of Magen David stars, earrings, and bracelets. Here’s a tutorial, if you want to try and make some too! He also co-authored a few books, including this one: Incarcerated Individual’s Pathway to Restorative Justice.
[6] We briefly mention the COVID pandemic. It cannot be stated enough how difficult it was to be incarcerated during those initial 18 months of the pandemic, particularly in Washington State, where the first USA cases emerged. There are all kinds of studies around what happened in congregant living situations. Here’s one report from Washington State Institute for Public Policy. For the folks on this podcast, life meant restricted movement. Including confinement to pods if you were healthy, or if you contracted COVID you might be moved into an isolation unit, also used for solitary confinement, to reduce the spread. Yet, COVID spread quickly. There were mass deaths. It was an incredibly difficult time. One positive element, is that tablets were made available for every individual that included books, podcasts, access to video and email communication (through a restricted and monitored service). This made passing the time more manageable, reduced loneliness, and encouraged education. There are mixed experiences with the tablets, as you see here and here, but for Ari and Josh, the tablets were the gateway to the Jewish community and Jewish learning.
[7] We make a big point not to declare that a certain way of converting or being Jewish is THE only way to convert or be Jewish. But that statement in itself is a radical declaration. What Judaism Unbound took on in this case, is counter to many denominational requirements and processes around Jewish conversion. Huh… not a huge surprise that Judaism Unbound is counterculture! We will dig deeper into how the Judaism Unbound approach differs from many mainstream approaches. This great article on www.myjewishlearning.org breaks down some basics and denominational differences.
[8] We make a strong statement about how we don’t want to tell the story of the crimes that landed Ari and Josh in prison. This is because our story is focused on the piece of their lives that started after they began experiencing the consequences of those actions. There’s a whole road this story could take around prison reform, abolitionist theory, the Jewish response to incarceration, the death penalty… you name it. But, since this is about Ari and Josh’s story of spiritual affirmation, their Jewish identity formation, being shared as much as possible through their own voices and realities, we feel it is theirs to share.
[9] It is no secret there are powerful sources of protection and violence in prison. Some of those sources are gangs, primarily aligned along lines of race. If you are Caucasian, as Ari and Josh are, they might find protection within the white supremacist gangs. In fact, some of the men who are part of the Shabbat minyan at one time in their prison sentence did align with a gang at one point but then were able to escape for a healthier lifestyle. So, to choose to identify as Jewish and therefore become hated by one of the only gangs that might protect you now increases one’s vulnerability. Here’s a powerful story by David Arenberg of his experiences of antisemitism and gang culture while incarcerated.
[10] The free will thing! This is pretty nuanced. This podcast “Can I convert because I love someone?” by the Hadar Institute (or you can read the transcript) discusses some of the different ways people read into the requirement and definition of free will as it relates to the conversion process.
[11] The audio is tough on this part of the call with Josh. He’s agitated. He wants to convert, but folks keep telling him, “yes…BUT… only when you get out.” And Josh is a lifer. He may never get out and, therefore, never convert to Judaism. Josh is a lifer because he was convicted under Washington State “Persistent Offenders Accountability Act” more commonly known as the “3 Strikes Your Out Law,” as a young man.
[12] We briefly describe the three rituals for conversion affirmation. Here’s a little more information on the Beit din, Milah and Mikvah.
[13] Were you way into the early conversion story for Yevamot 47a? Yeah, us too. Nerd out on Talmud with Benay Lappe and Dan Libenson on the Oral Talmud episode 139 where they do a deep dive into this text.
[14] Interested in learning more about the Introduction to Judaism course, “Judaism inbound” that Dan Libenson and Miriam Terlinchamp co-authored? Great! Listen to the Judaism Unbound Episode 374 or go straight to the class sign up!
For information on how to reach out to connect with Jewish agencies who support folks who are incarcerated and their families, connect with a Jewish penpal, donate to help bring kosher meals and access to Jewish supplies, or give straight to Ari and Josh’s Jewish minyan in Monroe … connect with us at: www.judaismunbound.com/tales
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TALES OF THE UNBOUND: EPISODE 1 “Jewish Enough”
LEX: This is Judaism Unbound Episode #435 “Tales of the Unbound”
I am so moved to share some exciting news with all of you. After 8 years of the Judaism Podcast, it’s clear that many of us are seeking a world where “Unbound Judaism” is a way of life. Hearing the stories of teachers, students, and listeners, who have built Jewish lives through the Judaism Unbound lens, has proven deeply meaningful.
In that spirit, we are proud to introduce the first addition to our Judaism Unbound family of podcasts TODAY, called Tales of the Unbound. It is a long-form series that follows the stories of folks whose lives have been deeply affected by our approach to Jewish identity and praxis. In its inaugural season, over the course of seven episodes, Tales of the Unbound follows the journey of two men who pursue Jewish conversion while incarcerated. The season explores themes of identity, conversion, belonging, and Jewish life behind bars.
We're thrilled to periodically feature Tales of the Unbound's episodes here on our Judaism Unbound feed, but if you want to listen to the whole series, right when they are first released, subscribe to Tales (T-a-l-e-s) of the Unbound in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other favorite place where podcasts are found. You can also help share these stories of transformation broadly with your friends and family, and check the shownotes for behind the scenes content, and ways to help support Jewish folks who are incarcerated.
Without further ado, here is our executive director Miriam Terlinchamp, with Episode 1:
MIRIAM: When you are in prison, there are many choices one can make about how to belong, stay safe, and spend your time. You can find a community based on race or workout routine or religion. You can protect yourself with violence, non-violence or something in between. You can spend your time in recovery groups, education, or drug use. So, it’s an interesting choice to say
ARI: I think of myself as part of Israel, when you convert, you're actually given a lineage,and it's just like, wow.
AMY: I think that many of them have found their true identity
JOSH: This is where I belong
MIRIAM: Finding your sense of belonging in Prison amongst the Jewish people, is no easy feat…particularly if you weren’t born Jewish and it is forbidden by Jewish normative conversion practices to convert while in Prison. And yet, Ari and Josh do just that.This is the story of their journey of Jewish belonging while incarcerated.
Welcome to Tales of the Unbound, Episode 1, Jewish Enough.
It begins with Amy, the Interim ED of University Beyond Bars, visiting a Prison in Washington State about an hour from where she lives. On one of her tours, she notices a man who stands out.
AMY: “I approached this young man who was wearing kippah and, and kind of tongue in cheek said, so what's with the kippah? And he said, wait, you know that word? And I said, yes, I'm one of you. He was like, “no way! Get out!” I said, yes way. “-
MIRIAM: The encounter leads to a conversation about Judaism in Prison.
AMY: Some of them came from families that were totally disconnected Jewishly, but then got to prison and needed to find something to hold on to. And so many people find religion and some of them were drawn back into Judaism. And so I would say that they were kind of this ragtag group of men who gathered as often as they were able to, but they didn't have a consistent sponsor. And, I approached the chaplain at Washington state reformatory and asked if I could become the Jewish chaplain for Monroe and he was super excited for the men and for me to be able to do that.
MIRIAM: One of the members of that ragtag group was Ari, a muscle-bound, auto-didact, who while incarcerated over the last two decades taught himself multiple languages, learned to paint, became the muralist for the prison, and provides the daily workout regimen for his crew.
For years the small group met for Shabbat, Sabbath worship. There were a few Jews by birth who could teach the others. But in order to share equall y in the process, Ari looked for ways to learn outside of the circle as well. He watched recorded classes from community colleges in his cell:
ARI: I saw that college professor on the Bellevue channel teaching Hebrew that I was like, wow, maybe I can take my Bible studies to the next level.
MIRIAM: Ari read books and learned Hebrew:
ARI: when I was working in the chapel, there was actually some Hebrew books, by Menachem Mansour called Biblical Hebrew Step by Step. And I learned from a book by myself. There were cassette tapes and that come with the book, and I would sit there while I was working and just kind of listen to things. And there was another one called Prayer Book Hebrew that had nine CDs. And I would sit there and learn how the cantors were singing things. So by the time I met Amy years later, she was actually surprised because she goes, Oh my gosh, how did you teach yourself Hebrew?
MIRIAM: Ari helped grow the community, welcoming others in, like his cellmate, Josh.
Josh is effervescent - you can feel his enthusiasm for life in his every word. He found himself a lifer at a young age. And yet, Josh’s focus over the last years has been in restorative justice, taking atonement seriously, serving on volunteer boards and helping raise support dogs. He makes Jewelry . He’s written books. And he was looking for a spiritual compendium to the hard work of restorative justice.
JOSH: it was very interesting to them that somebody that's full of tattoos and You know, blonde hair, blue eyes, was coming to this space, I did maybe seem out of, out of place slightly, but I didn't feel like anybody was trying to push me away. I felt very embraced
Then, the COVID pandemic hit. And the men were confined to their cells and pods. Ari and Josh received tablets for education, and the world of Judaism became more accessible than ever.
ARI: So there were literally, like, thousands of podcasts to choose from, and it was just something that I came across in the Jewish section, and I was like, oh, Judaism Unbound, this one seems cool, and I started listening to a few of the episodes.
MIRIAM: Both Ari and Josh had little interaction with Judaism and Jewish people before Prison. Ari found Judaism early on through the lens of study, while Josh found it later on through the lens of faith.
In this story, we won’t be making a declarative dogmatic statement about what it means to convert or be Jewish. Because, we agree with Ari:
ARI: I love history, tradition, and rituals, but I think there's more than one way to do Jewish, there's no one right way to do anything as far as I'm concerned.
MIRIAM: And we won’t be talking about the crimes that led Josh and Ari to be incarcerated. because, we agree with Amy:
AMY: from the very beginning I never asked any of them what they did to end up in prison,not my place, um, not my business unless they want to share, and I think that's an important aspect of this sacred space. Is that there's no judgment that anybody is making on anyone else about the depths of the crime that they committed to land in prison.
MIRIAM: What we are talking about here are two men seeking a place of belonging - rich in curiosity and self-reflection, finding faith and community in Judaism. And, then slowly growing that circle of belonging. In terms of physical safety, there is no benefit to identify as a minority by choice in prison.
JOSH: like a couple of our members, were attacked in other facilities
MIRIAM: There are stories after stories of targeted abuse, violence, and discrimination against Jewish people in prison.
AMY: white supremacist movements are really popular in prison and a number of the guys were moved from prisons where they were being harassed regularly because of their Jewish identity.
MIRIAM: Why would anyone CHOOSE to be Jewish in Prison?
JOSH: And I can only say that, I don't think that I found Judaism, I think Judaism found me.
MIRIAM: One day, they are all working out in the yard.
ARI: And there was this guy who always seemed to be around the pull up bar and the dip bars. And we'd
JOSH: always hanging out together in their little trio, working out, laughing, joking, having a good time, kind of carefree, but what he didn't know was that they were Jews. And all he knew was is he looked at a group of guys and they were always laughing, joking, you know, ribbing each other, having a wonderful time.
MIRIAM: So, he went up to them, and asked,
“What kind of people laugh in prison?!?”
JOSH: Jews!
AMY: Jews!
ARI: Jews!
JOSH: “That's where I need to be, because that's what I want to do.” -
MIRIAM: And yet, they couldn’t convert formally to Judaism.
AMY: there was this notion of you can't convert while incarcerated because you're not free to make those decisions. When any of them had asked, about conversion in the typical places where they would think to ask, there was always a tacit no, right? There's no such thing as conversion in prison because you can't do it freely. So in the conversations that we had with people, it was always, when I get out, I wanna do this. how do I do that when I get out? And it was like, well, we'll help you find the path when you get out.
JOSH: Well, in my circumstance, I have life without parole at this moment, so what would they say about that? Where does free will come into play? Would they deny me a conversion and the opportunity to be able to practice in a meaningful way and be a part of this community, simply for the sentence that I've received? I was never more free and able to make that choice freely than I was at this point in time after I'd been in the Jewish community. I had shed everything that was holding me down, everything that was shackling me to the past was gone. I had fully rehabilitated and became a member of this community in more ways than one
MIRIAM: Ok, let’s pause here for a moment for some context on Jewish conversion.
In the Jewish tradition - conversion is supposed to be hard, it’s a long process with a built-in system of turning people away and a sentiment that you can live a Jewish life without converting. In some ways, it’s a really beautiful notion. We don’t necessarily need more Jews, we need more people living good lives. In a religion that is “this world” oriented, we have little interest in saving souls for the sake of Heaven, we are much more interested in the healing and hard work of justice (tikkun) in this lifetime, and for that you just need to be a good human. Not a good Jewish human.
But, if you want to convert, even though Judaism has no need for you to do so, there are some stipulations:
1. You must have free will. Total autonomy in body and spirit. This is likely related to historic Jewish trauma of being forcibly converted.
2. You must not benefit/gain from conversion.
This is about authentic intention. You could read it as a fear of assimilation, including folks who will change Judaism unrecognizably, and also, likely related to theories around chosenness, and being present at Sinai. In fact, traditionally, we say… all Jewish souls across time - (past, present and future) -were standing at Sinai when we received the commandments, which means conversion isn’t a change, it’s an affirmation of your Jewish soul.
3. You must be able to observe all of the mitzvot, the commandments.
It’s nearly impossible to observe Shabbat according to halachic standards [Jewish law} in Prison. There are wonderful support agencies who provide access to kosher food and prayerbooks, but many of the required mitzvot cannot be followed while incarcerated.
4. There are three specific rituals a convert must undergo in order to fully convert to Judaism: Beit Din
JOSH: A house of Judgement
MIRIAM: a group of three rabbis who question your intentions and knowledge. In some spaces, it feels like affirmation while in others it can feel like a dissertation defense.
JOSH: I was scared of going to the house of judgment, I was scared of coming to the Beit Din
MIRIAM: Ritual circumcision,
ARI: Hatifat Dam
MIRIAM: and, ritual immersion in living waters
ARI: Mikvah
MIRIAM: But in prison,
ARI: there was no way to do the Hatifat Dam or convene a Beit Din or do a Mikvah
MIRIAM: These rituals have been THE way to convert to Judaism since conversion was introduced. But over time, each element became increasingly more difficult.
Mikvah, ritual immersion, begins as a practice in the Maccabean period but over time it becomes more complicated with how to prepare and the requirement of witnesses.
Milah or Circumcision used to be a small incision that you could hide, but after Jews started “reversing” their circumcisions in order to compete in Greek athletics the rabbis made the circumcision requirements more extreme.
And the rabbinic court, the beit din, which is now a fairly rigorous conversation that requires over a year of study and preparation, used to be just a single question:
DAN: Don’t you know the Jews are oppressed?
MIRIAM: That’s Dan Libenson, Founder of Judaism Unbound, President of Lippman Kanfer, Foundation for Living Torah, and the co-host of the Judaism Unbound podcast. The line itself is from a chapter in the Talmud, Yevamot 47a:13 on the standards of conversion. It’s one of the earliest documented cases of the process of conversion. Here’s Lex Rofeberg, the Senior Jewish Educator at Judaism Unbound and the co-host of the Judaism Unbound podcast, sharing the text:
LEX: A convert approaches the sages, who ask the convert “What did you see that caused you to come to convert? Don’t you know that Israel, at the present time, is an anguished, suppressed, despised, harassed and hardships frequently visited upon them? And then, if the convert says “yes, and I am unworthy” we accept him immediately.
MIRIAM: I know! The idea that suffering is the cost of identifying as a Jew as a core identity marker is intense. It’s also consistent with the way many Jewish folk see Jewish identity now, 1800 years after the codification of this text. There is fear around what it means to declare your Jewishness, and a wonder why someone would choose to join us. There’s built in rejection, fear and self loathing into the process of conversion.
And… the I am unworthy part? That’s fascinating. And uncomfortable. What is the convert unworthy of? Certainly not the suffering. Maybe, that’s our fantasy - that someone is so in love with Judaism that not only do they love us, they reject our rejection and self-recrimination. Saying yes, to the beauty, to the realities and to the unconscious insecurities that are part of Jewish identity.
The sages know that there is a cost of identifying as a Jew, and that no worthwhile treasure is free. Here’s Dan again in a conversation with myself and Lex Rofeberg on episode 374 of the Judaism Unbound Podcast:
DAN: In the Talmud, basically, you just tell somebody a few mitzvot, a few small ones, a few big ones, and the one thing that you have to tell everybody is that we Jews take care of the poor. And that's it. And so then you just jump into the mikvah, the ritual bath, and you do a ritual immersion, and you're Jewish. And there is no conversion class. It does not have to be a year. It does not have to be a day. It just has to be a quick conversation, and then, boom, you're Jewish. So this whole notion that people have that in order to become Jewish, you need to take a really big class, and maybe some people say you have to live as a Jew for a year, things like that, those are not from the early days of the Talmud. Now, that doesn't mean that they're not authentic. I mean, they've grown up over time, but that was not the OG conversion. And if you care about the OG conversion, then there is room, we think, to do things differently.
MIRIAM: I'm a West Coaster who's been transplanted to the Midwest. There's so many things I don't understand. Still, after being here more than a decade about like how much you're allowed to talk to someone at the butter aisle in the grocery store here and in Seattle, you would just like wear your earphones all the time and it would be fine. And that's not rude. But here it is, like all kinds of nuances around acceptance. And if at the end of the day, we're not just individuals on a spiritual journey, but a group of humans trying to change our world, that we have to figure out some kind of collective metric of acceptance. And so I think that if we're going to be pushing Jews to become Jews in their one beautiful area that will bring that gift back to the Mishkan, back to like the holy altar that we're building, then we got to do a lot of insider education about gatekeeping. My biggest problem in my work is the gatekeeping and what it means to actually truly accept.
DAN: maybe a separate course is needed for long-standing Jews to learn to not gatekeep. And what does it mean to have an orientation to Judaism where gatekeeping becomes a ridiculous thing to think about? Like somehow, how could you keep a gate? There are no gates.You're standing guard in this place where the gate used to be, but there's actually no gate. And so people can go around you and everywhere. So it becomes absurd, but maybe that's kind of what the world actually is. I'm very, very radical about conversion. Like I really profoundly don't believe that there should be any substantial requirements. I love the idea that the one concrete requirement that we see in the Talmud is that you have to tell people that Jews care for the poor. That's the one thing you need to know. And then whoever's doing it can tell you a few other things, and then that's it. And by the way, part of why I think that was true back in the time of the early days of the Talmud is because like our time, it wasn't clear what Judaism was. Judaism was in a great period of transition. How are you gonna teach somebody what Judaism is all about and what Jews believe? It's all changing. And that's exactly like our time. So the idea that we would know how to put together a course to teach you all you need to know about Judaism when Judaism itself is changing becomes kind of absurd.
MIRIAM: This was the episode that prompted Josh & Ari to reach out to us.
ARI: I loved how you guys had talked about not doing gatekeeping and all these other things. Things that, you know, were barriers to people from the outside and how the OG conversion of, you know, saying a few minor mitzvot and some of the greater mitzvot, but mentioning that, you know, choose to help the poor and all that.
MIRIAM: SIGH. Gatekeeping.
JOSH: as I listened I learned about gatekeeping shouldn't be a thing, we should embrace folks in our community, and have everybody have a joyous experience that's meaningful to everybody, and hopefully we can create this loving environment. That just fosters community, and I loved that.
MIRIAM: Being locked away from who you want to be was not new for Ari and Josh.
AMY: there are these very big metal doors that you go into from the outside. So you go into one and then another, then it closes behind you and there's one in front of you. It was really jarring to hear that sort of slamming of the door. And I could only think about like what that must be like for them all the time, right? Having their own cell doors closed like that, you know, three times a day, whatever it is for them.
[Heavy door closing sound]
MIRIAM: Locked out. Locked Down. And still, every week, Ari and Josh pursued what they’d been told was impossible.
ARI: It was a desire to affirm something that I already believed, but I just kind of wanted to announce it to the rest of the world, I had been keeping Shabbat and doing all the things for the last 15 years or so I just wanted to take that final step be recognized and, you know, over the years I've actually tried to reach out to some of the local people and You know, I would, you know, get responses like, Oh my gosh, that's so amazing! But at the moment, I don't have time for a conversion student. And, you know, it's totally understandable. Rabbis are very, very busy people. And I feel, like, underappreciated for the amount of work they do behind the scenes. Uh, but, you know, it was just kind of hard to find someone to do that.
AMY: Rabbis are being reached out to by people who don't know them, right, and they don't know. So there's that fear factor. Right what am I going to get sucked into? I don't have the bandwidth for this. I'm going to go. I'm going to travel an hour or an hour and a half to go see 1 person for an hour.Like, what kind of benefit is that for them? Is that how I really want to spend my time?
ARI: We just never found a rabbi that would do it. You know, I got some very nice letters, you know, back, you know, Hey, if you need a Tallit or a Siddur, let me know, but I'm sorry, I don't have time for this right now. And it's no fault on them, you know, I get it, like, I'm in a prison, and, you know, It was just something that I was gonna wait for if that were the case.
JOSH: the answers that we were receiving back is that it's going to be really hard, it's going to be difficult, because people say that you don't have free will, so therefore how could you, how could you convert if you don't have free will?
MIRIAM: And then, one day…
ARI: I typed in conversion under the search function on the podcast, and your name and a couple others came up, and I listened to them, and I was like, wow, Josh, this lady seems amazing, and like, you have to listen to this, and he's like,
JOSH: Yes, you're right. We need to reach out to her.
ARI: I don't know if this is gonna work or not, but we'll see if she writes back
JOSH: So I reached out to you Miriam via email and you responded and I was absolutely enthused because it was the first response I ever had.
AMY: They found you simultaneously and for both of them, it was this light bulb, like, wait, We can do this, we wanna do this, we wanna do this now.
MIRIAM: Josh, Ari, and I talked regularly for a few months. They wrote letters and emails, and we spoke on the phone. They read every book and article I sent them. They listened to as much Jewish content as they could get their hands on. They dutifully participated in Shabbat and studied with Amy.
AMY: And then once they approached me and said, we found someone who is willing to help us, will you help us? I mean, in some ways it was a no-brainer, right? It's like, of course, Like if you've found Rabbinic leadership that's willing to sort of do this,it's fine with me. I'm happy to help in any way I can.
MIRIAM: We spoke with the prison. I studied up on ways we could follow traditional Jewish guidelines for conversion that might work within the context of a correctional system.
JOSH: So for me, reaching out to you and having you say, This is possible, where I thought it wasn't possible for me because I'm serving this sentence, Where they say you will die in prison and I think there's a lot of folks inside prison That are suffering from this same thing They are told you are going to die in prison. There will be no relief for you There will be no recompense There will be no, you know burning of a sacrifice at an altar like we read about in haikram on our shot uh, you know, there will be no justification for who you are to allow you to Become the person that you believe that you are but yet In that moment you decided that nothing is impossible and that resonated with me And that's whenever I was like, holy smokes yall.
MIRIAM: Holy smokes is right.
And I was all in.
I flew out to Seattle, drove the hour up to the prison, and began a journey of radical transformation. Where previously there had been no mikvah, no milah, no beit din.
ARI: Somehow, you found a way to do all the above.
I stood in front of the makeshift mikvah we’d made out of collected rain and lake water, watching this community of men bear witness to their friends' transition.
LIVE MIKVAH AUDIO. Description: [water splashing sound, men in the mikvah. Josh says: shema yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad, as he completes his immersion. Followed by Amy murmuring a blessing (Priestly benediction)]
MIRIAM: I knew that this wasn’t just the story of two men in a prison. Not just about their chaplains or their community. It was also a story of my own conversion too.
The gates were open for all of us.
And so we started recording our conversations so that others might walk through those open gates along with us.
PRISON PHONE AUDIO: Hello, this is a free call from Joshua Phillips. An incarcerated individual at Monroe Corrections Complex. To accept this free call, press 1. To refuse this free call, press 2. Thank you for using Securus. You may start the conversation now.
MIRIAM: And we pressed 1.
Thanks for listening. Tales of the Unbound is a production of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future and part of the family of podcasts of Judaism Unbound. Tales of the Unbound was created and written by me, Miriam Terlinchamp, produced and edited by Joey Taylor, original music by Ric Hordinski, and art by Katie Kaestner-Frenchman.
Thank you to Amy, Marvin, and all who serve the Jewish people. A big shout out to Ari, Josh, all the Jewish folks in Monroe Correctional, and all the people everywhere trying their best to have a good time.
Special thanks to DC at Monroe Correctional who allowed access to Ari and Josh. Check the show notes to find out ways you can get involved to support those who are incarcerated and for amazing behind the scenes content. We'd love to hear from you, so you can email us at miriam@judaismunbound.com or find us at: wwwjudaismunbound.com/tales.
Stay tuned for our next episode, in which we will follow Amy on her journey to becoming a Jewish prison chaplain.
AMY: I guess for me it's really about helping them to do good time. And if the values and the morals of Judaism are an underpinning for them that allow them to do that, then that's what I want to help them do. Become better people.
MIRIAM: Thanks for listening. This has been Tales of the Unbound.
