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.
Reprinted by permission of Douglas Burgess
© 1999 from Chicken Soup for the Prisoner's Soul by Jack
Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Tom Lagana. In order to protect
the rights of the copyright holder, no portion of this publication may
be reproduced without prior written consent. All rights reserved.
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