Rabbi Irving J. Block, spiritual leader of the Brotherhood Synagogue, declared in a Rosh Hashanah sermon that Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, State Correction Commissioner Russell Oswald and other officials of New York State “should don sack cloth and ashes and lead the citizens of New York in expressing deepest feelings of remorse and repentance” over “the tragedy that has fallen upon the families of hostages and prisoners at Attica.”
Rabbi Block urged “a revision of the penal system of America which dehumanizes the incarcerated and has resulted in the carnage in the Attica prison” on Sept. 13, in which ten hostages and 30 prisoners were killed, apparently all by gunfire from state troopers sent in on orders of Gov. Rockefeller to quell the four-day prison rebellion.
Rabbi Block said Judaism “rejects” the “heathenish approach” of the American penal structure “that when a man commits a crime against society, he forfeits not only his freedom but also his personality and that society may take away from him both body and soul.” He added that the action of prison authorities in identifying the dead prisoners only by number “and by rejecting their families’ pleas for information, we have further stripped ourselves of a human feeling and stunted our growth as persons and citizens.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
