A surprising thing happened Sept. 5 inside the sprawling women’s prison in Corona, Calif.
Two women celebrated a joint bat mitzvah.
Never before had a bat mitzvah taken place in a U.S. prison, the officiating rabbi said.
“It was like watching thread being spun into gold,” said Nancy Goldberg, a Tiburon woman and the vice president of the S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services who traveled to the California Institution for Women for the bat mitzvahs.
“I was able to witness choosing life over death, hope over despair, faith over nothingness,” she said. “That’s rarely the kind of thing clearly articulated in a prison.”
The bat mitzvahs were the culmination of a growing Jewish presence at CIW thanks to Rabbi Moshe Halfon, who has been the Jewish chaplain there since 2006. At any given time, he counsels about 50 Jewish women.
Half keep kosher, one-third grew up in Jewish homes, one-third identify as Jewish and a third hopes to convert one day, he said.
The bat mitzvah women, “Carol” and “Pamela,” preferred their real names not be used so that when they’re paroled in a few months they can more easily have a fresh start.
They approached the rabbi a year ago about studying together for their bat mitzvahs.
“It wasn’t my choice, it was their request,” Halfon said. “I had a high standard, and these two were willing to rise to that standard.”
Carol, 29, and Pamela, 25, are both in CIW for drug-related charges.
Carol, who is Jewish, was raised by her grandparents — her parents also used drugs. She has been an inmate at CIW since May 2008 and is scheduled for parole in November, when she hopes to be reunited with her children, who are currently in foster care.
Pamela, who is from the Bay Area, has been incarcerated since December 2007. Her mother is Jewish, but Pamela didn’t grow up particularly religious. While at CIW, Pamela’s 5-year-old son is being cared for by relatives and she has earned an associate degree. She will be paroled in January.
Both women studied Hebrew on their own time, in addition to working jobs and attending classes, 12-step programs and other prison-mandated activities.
About 30 community volunteers and 70 inmates attended the Sept. 5 ceremony. The ceremony was heldin the prison’s interfaith chapel, which is shared by Jews, Protestants, Catholics and Native Americans, among others.
The chapel is about the size of a large portable classroom trailer. The carpet is fraying and the walls plain save for a few pieces of religious (including some Jewish) artwork.
“I told the women, ‘This is no longer a double-wide trailer, it’s our sanctuary,’ ” Halfon said.
The audience watched as Carol and Pamela led prayers, chanted from the Torah and gave a d’var Torah about Parashat Nitzavim, chosen for its themes of redemption and freedom of choice.
The women took Hebrew names — Pamela chose Zohara Binah and Carol chose Chava Shira. They also led the congregation in several Debbie Friedman songs, and Carol and another inmate performed an a cappella version of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful.”
“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Halfon said.
In her d’var Torah, Carol spoke about the mistakes she made in her life and the escape drugs once offered her. Now, she said, she turns to God to help her overcome hurdles in her path.
“This decision to learn from my setbacks has helped me to prepare for my future in recovery and to be of service to others,” she said. “I have been set on a new course in life. This community and my love for the Torah have brought me to this delightful place, and for this I am so grateful.”
In her speech, Pamela said she would leave prison “with a new soul,” and she called the Jewish community “a lifeline of hope and light in an abyss of futility and despair.”
All in attendance celebrated with cookies and challah after the bat mitzvah.
At 4 p.m., three hours after the bat mitzvah began, a horn sounded — signaling the inmates to leave the chapel and return to their cells.
“We call our community b’not ohr, or women of light,” Halfon said. Living Jewishly “gives them the ability to see themselves as holy women.”