In Florida Jail, Kosher Meals Available While Halal Options Are Pulled
Image by COURTESY OF ALEPH INSTITUTE
Muslim inmates at a Florida jail are complaining that their diets are being unfairly altered while Jewish inmates continue to receive kosher meals.
Imam Jaabir Muhammad, a jail chaplain at the Palm Beach County Jail, told local news station WPTV that earlier this month, kosher and halal meal options were taken away from Muslim inmates.
“They made all of them vegans, vegetarians against their will,” he told the station.
A jail spokesperson reached by WPTV said that the maneuver was implemented to cut costs.
In June, the Florida Department of Corrections announced it would offer kosher meals in its state prisons by the end of the year. A month earlier, a Florida inmate, Bruce Rich, won a case in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta for the right to be served kosher meals in prison.
Last year, the Forward reported on how kosher meals are popular with secular Jews, messianic Jews, Black Hebrew Israelites, as well as prisoners without any religious background.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
