Based on the case of an Orthodox Jewish man, a judge ruled that a state prison must allow religious inmates to keep special diets. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that U.S. Magistrate Judge James Muirhead ruled in favor of inmate Albert Kuperman, who was receiving pre-packaged kosher meals daily in prison and had kosher items available to him at the canteen. Prison officials had taken away his privileges after he was caught with non-kosher meat from the canteen. Lawyers for Kuperman had agreed that the punishment for eating non-kosher food would be a six-month suspension of his kosher diet, but later said the punishment violated Kuperman’s First Amendment right to practice religion. The judge agreed. “Removing an Orthodox Jew from a kosher diet serves, religiously speaking, to distance an inmate from his own spirituality and religious practice,” Muirhead wrote, according to the AP.
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