According to the complaint, Benjamin’s requests were repeatedly denied, and prison officials asked him to provide rabbinical and temple information or a letter of conversion to prove his faith. After at least 15 denials, he and another Jew in custody were told a rabbi would be brought to prison to “assess whether they were Jewish.” The rabbi did not visit.
A federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C., alleges that the Washington, D.C. Department of Corrections illegally refused to serve kosher meals to Benjamin and other Jews detained without proof of religion.
According to the complaint, the prison’s external religious certification process requires confirmation of Jewish faith from synagogues and rabbis, or submission of proof of conversion, before serving kosher meals. This puts an “undue and unjustifiable burden on these people” and prevents them from “engaging in the essential elements of practicing their religion,” DC’s ACLU said in a news release.
The complaint was filed on Benjamin’s behalf against two prison chaplains, the Rev. Nicole Colbert and Rev. Jimmy Allen, and Jacqueline Williams, deputy director for education, re-entry, and case management at the Department of Corrections.the complaint indicts them for violating the religious rights of Benjamin and other Jews were held under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“My Jewish faith was one of the few that sustained me during the difficult times of my confined life,” Benjamin said in a news release from the ACLU. “It is discriminatory and wrong for Reverend Colbert and Reverend Allen, who are of their own faith, to deny me the opportunity to be kosher by imposing certification requirements that do not apply to people of other religions. Masu.”
In a statement, the Department of Corrections declined to comment on the pending lawsuit, but said kosher meals are being served through food service providers. The Washington, D.C. Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.
Attempts to contact Colbert, Allen and Williams on Thursday afternoon were unsuccessful.
According to the complaint, it is estimated that between 29 and 36 Jews who “want to adhere to a kosher diet” are detained in D.C. prisons each year.
“For many Jews, eating ‘kosher’ or ‘healthy’ foods is a commandment from God and a way to feel connected to Judaism in everyday life,” the complaint said. It is stated.
According to the complaint, Benjamin and other Jews who requested kosher meals were unaware that detained Christians and Muslims had to provide external proof of their religion in order to receive accommodation. It says. According to a news release, the class action seeks a court order to drop the requirement for Jews already in detention or soon to be detained “as a condition of approving requests for kosher meals.”
The lawsuit also called for the Department of Corrections to require the provision of kosher food to Jews who “requested on the basis of a sincere desire to maintain kosher eating habits as part of the practice of their faith.” the news release said. One Jewish man named in the lawsuit was denied kosher food in prison despite threatening a hunger strike.
“Ultimately, the government cannot get you to prove your faith through a third party,” said Laura Follansby, an ACLU legal researcher in Washington, DC and Benjamin’s attorney, in an interview. “First Amendment case law acknowledges that faith is a very personal matter.”
Benjamin arrested in June 2022 The murder of 31-year-old Maurice McRae, who died months after being shot in a building in northeastern Washington in February of the same year. Benjamin, who has been charged with second-degree murder while in a state of arms and has pleaded not guilty, will face trial in the case next year, according to online court records.
Through the lawsuit, Benjamin seeks reparations and aims to set a precedent for the rights of Jews and “individuals of all faiths,” according to a news release. Follansby said he had not yet received a kosher meal at the time of filing the lawsuit.
“Despite defendant’s external religious certification and refusal to request a kosher meal, Mr. Benjamin remained committed to practicing his Jewish faith as much as possible,” the complaint reads. It is
