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Makom Torah - A Place of Torah

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Rabbi Gorin Tends to Jewish Inmates' Learning.........posted Dec 3, 2006

Rabbi Howard Gorin has ministered to his congregants at Tikvat Israel in Rockville for 26 years. Over the last few years, he's extended his reach to serve the needs of the Abayudaya (Jewish) Community in Uganda and emerging Jewish communities in Nigeria, visiting both on several occasions.

And now Rabbi Gorin is going behind bars to serve the thirst for Jewish knowledge by inmates at state and federal penitentiaries, an often overlooked but growing population.

The rabbi has personally collected hundreds of books on a sundry range of Judaism-related themes in recent months, shipping them on several occasions to a Pittsburgh-based organization that ensures the books reach their intended targets. His most recent shipment, at the end of November, totaled 250 pounds.

The rabbi's literary shipments include numerous Bibles and texts on basic Judaism, Jewish history and practice and fiction with Jewish themes. The Jewish Publication Society provided many of the books as Gorin made frequent forays through bins of damaged books at the society's warehouse near Dulles Airport in Virginia in search of appropriate titles.

He also benefited from works sent to him at Tikvat Israel from synagogues as close as Arlington, Va., and Gaithersburg, Md., and as far-flung as Birmingham, Ala., Stamford, Conn., and Wilmette, Ill. - congregations that had heard of Gorin's earlier collection of thousands of titles, as well as computer software, for Jews in the two African nations that he has visited on multiple occasions this decade.

Last February, he and his synagogue, Tikvat Israel Congregation, shipped some 8,000 pounds of books and related material on Judaism to Nigeria.

For the prison shipment, Gorin purchased some of the books from the Friends of the Public Library, which operates second-hand bookstores in Montgomery County.

The rabbi is working with the Aleph Institute, whose regional office in Pittsburgh caters to the needs of Jewish men and women behind bars at several dozen correctional institutions across the Northeast. Jill Obenour, a director at the Aleph Institute, said there are approximately 175 Jewish prisoners in Pennsylvania alone, with at least 1,000 inmates in state and federal prisons in the Northeast region.

The Aleph Institute runs a Torah studies correspondence course for Jewish inmates so "any religious books that we receive will be sent out to those who request materials to supplement or enhance their studies," Obenour said. "So many of our Torah studies students request a Torah, and we've never been able to supply all those who make a request."

Some 30 rabbis affiliated with the institute visit prisoners regularly. Where permitted, religious books are taken to prisoners during these visits. In other cases, Aleph mails them to inmates.

"Unfortunately, there are virtually no Jewish reading materials available to prisoners, so these books are such a blessing," she said. "With the books that Rabbi Gorin has sent us, we will be able to reach people at any level of Jewish observance. He has sent us a wonderful selection of books -- religious, historical, fiction, etc. -- something for everyone's taste.

"We are so very grateful that Rabbi Gorin has taken an interest in this often forgotten segment of the Jewish people," Obenour said. "With generosity and compassion, he is enabling us to bring light into some of the darkest places on earth."

Further information about the Aleph Institute is available at www.alephne.org.