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Atlanta Penitentiary Prisoners Honor Jewish Chaplain on Retirement

January 3, 1964
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In an unusual setting and with the participation of several rabbis, other Jewish communal leaders and Federal officials who joined prisoners and tough prison guards, farewell services were held at the Federal Penitentiary here yesterday, honoring Hyman Jacobs, a resident of this city. For 53 years, Mr. Jacobs has been the volunteer lay Jewish chaplain at the penitentiary. The services marked his voluntary retirement.

Fifty Jewish prisoners at the penitentiary presented a scroll to Mr. Jacobs. The penitentiary’s associate warden, Virgil Breland, lauded Mr. Jacobs’ “devoted service, and read a letter praising the volunteer chaplain’s activities from James V. Bennett, of Washington, director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

Mr. Jacobs started his volunteer chaplaincy at the penitentiary in 1910, taking up the work previously done there by his father, the late Abraham Jacobs, a local Hebrew teacher. For more than a half-century. Mr. Jacobs a local officially on the Federal pay-roll–receiving for his service a dollar a year. He will be succeeded as regular Jewish chaplain by Rabbi Chaim Federman.

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