WASHINGTON (JTA) — Daily kosher meals will be available to Jewish inmates in Maryland prisons after Passover, reported the Baltimore Jewish Times.
The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services announced this week that any of the 130 inmates registered with their institution’s chaplains as Jewish, House of Yahweh or Assembly of Yahweh who put in a request will receive three meals a day meeting kosher requirements starting April 17. Kosher for Passover meals had previously been available.
Some inmates who request a kosher diet could be transfered to a different facility, said the department, because only certain prisons will be equipped to handle kosher preparations.
“Correctional facilities mirror society: many people of many different faiths,” said Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) in a statement. "In America, people of every faith are entitled to practice that faith to the fullest extent possible, even in a correctional setting.”
Rabbi Herzel Kranz of Silver Spring, Md., a longtime activist on the issue, told the Washington Jewish Week that the announcement was a "step in the right direction," but that the state had still not provided a concrete layout for how meals will be delivered and what the menu would include.
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