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Passover at Rikers Island: How the notorious jail complex holds a seder for Jewish inmates

(New York Jewish Week) — Miriam Tohill, a Jewish chaplain intern at Rikers Island, is looking forward to co-leading Passover seders for Jewish inmates this year for the first time. But conditions at the New York City jail complex are not ideal. 

For the seders, held on the first and second nights of the holiday, some 70 to 100 inmates will be bussed from different parts of the island complex to a gymnasium that “feels like a high school gym,” said Tohill, 32, who uses the pronouns “she” and “they.” Sending participants to hunt for the afikoman, a hidden piece of matzah, is “discouraged,” she added, “for obvious reasons.”

The seder tradition of putting pillows on the room’s flimsy folding chairs, they said, is likewise prohibited. And while the door of the gym, rather than a door to the outside, will be opened for Elijah the prophet, they said, “the symbolism is obviously muted.”

Beyond that, Tohill added, it may be a challenge to create a festive mood. Corrections officers will be sitting on bleachers at the side of the room, which has a “squeaky floor, very tall ceiling, [and] terrible acoustics.” 

Nonetheless, Tohill expects the seders at Rikers to be filled with meaning. She and others who work with Jewish inmates at the jail say that the holiday — which celebrates the ancient Jewish exodus from slavery to freedom — takes on a different resonance when celebrated by people currently behind bars.

“It’s both easier and harder to talk about slavery, freedom and hope when you’re incarcerated, but we’re all hoping for freedom and rehabilitation and growth in the future,” said Rabbi Gabriel Kretzmer Seed, Rikers’ Jewish chaplain. “People had beautiful insights about what freedom means to them, especially talking about how they feel free even when they’re incarcerated. I was very inspired by that.” 

Seed, who received ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the liberal Orthodox seminary in the Bronx, began working as a chaplain at Rikers in 2018. The jail has been criticized for harsh conditions, which include evidence of inmates caged in tiny showers and sleeping on floors next to a pile of excrement. The complex has also been the site of suicides, beatings and more. Nineteen people died at Rikers in 2022 — the jail’s highest death rate since 2013, and the city is required by law to close it by 2027, though whether that will be possible is unclear. 

Seed said that while Rikers can be a volatile and intense environment, it has also given him a sense of gratitude, highlighting the Jewish concept of teshuva, or repentance, and the idea that everyone deserves a second chance. Seed said Rikers’ Jewish inmates come from a range of religious backgrounds, from haredi Orthodox people educated in yeshivas to others who decided to explore their Judaism once they were incarcerated. He holds weekly services at the jail that draw up to 12 attendees;  this week’s teachings discussed the concepts of freedom and slavery as a precursor to the seders.

“I’m kind of buoyed by those values,” Seed said, referring to teshuva. “When I’m having a rough day, I leave my office, go to a housing area, and people are just so grateful for even a few visits, a few minutes when I step into their housing area, or when I get to teach and engage with people, and that just lifts me up and reminds me why I do this work.”

Year round, Rikers Island offers kosher food, which is provided by the city. Seed and Department of Corrections officials would not provide specifics on where the food comes from, saying only that it comes from “different caterers.” And matzah isn’t only available on Passover: Jewish inmates eat the unleavened bread year-round at Rikers because it is a kosher food option that is easily available.  

There are Orthodox volunteer groups that help bring kosher food into the jail, including members of L’asurim,  a nonprofit that supports prisoners, and the Lubavitch Youth Organization, a branch of the Chabad Hasidic movement. 

Rabbi Shmuel Tevel, who is active in the Lubavitch group, told the New York Jewish Week that he visits Jewish inmates regularly at Rikers and other prisons across the state. “For an inmate sitting in a prison cell in those darkest moments, in a state where they feel they’re at the end of their rope, they need to tie a knot and hang on,” he said. “That’s what we give them.” 

The Lubavitch Youth Organization outside of Rikers Island doing outreach work during Purim. (Courtesy)

Ahead of Passover, his group is delivering 40 pounds of matzah, along with grape juice, haroset and vacuum-packed seder plates to some cells whose inmates won’t be allowed to attend the seder.

Zalman Tevel, Shmuel’s brother, who runs the group’s volunteer initiative at Rikers, told the New York Jewish Week that he spoke to a guard after visiting inmates during the holiday of Purim last month, and the guard told him the inmates were “in a better state.”

“They are closer to God,” he said. “It leaves a very good impact.”

Tohill described her work on Rikers, which includes working with inmates in other ways, in similar terms. Tohill said the work allows her to provide Jewish teachings in “a place that has so little space for joy, or God.” She compared the seder at Rikers to the tabernacle that the ancient Israelites built in the desert

“We put all this care into it, knowing that it’s temporary, and we’re going to take it down again,” Tohill said. “We are in the wilderness and desperately need a place to meet Hashem. It is so temporary and imperfect, but that makes it even more worth putting the time into.”

For Tohill, co-leading the seders is part of their master’s project at the Union Theological Seminary, a traditionally Protestant seminary in Manhattan that now focuses on “training people of all faiths and none who are called to the work of social justice in the world.” Tohill’s project explores the meaning of Passover for oppressed people.

“I was in a position to ask, what does this Seder do for us spiritually, emotionally, communally?” Tohill said. “What does it promise to us if we have no access to freedom for people who are incarcerated? That became a big question for me, a theological question about what does this ritual do and how do we as Jews think about liberation?” 

Tohill, who lives in the uptown Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, said that some of the inmates have written about their personal stories and will share how they relate to Passover at the seder.  

“We have congregants who have written poems about what sense they make of the Exodus story or of the four cups of wine,” Tohill said, referencing a central ritual of the seder. “We have congregants who have done drawings about their family that, to them, feel related to the Passover story in different ways.” 

Requests to speak to an inmate planning to attend a seder, or to see inmates’ drawings or writings, were denied by the Department of Corrections.

Tohill called Rikers “a broken system” and said celebrating Passover feels particularly urgent there. They compared Rikers Island to “a floating trash heap in the middle of the ocean that we don’t want anyone to notice.”

“Passover is an opportunity to notice and ask who is being made invisible,” Tohill said. “The rest of the people in New York City who are not directly impacted by the prison industrial complex get to pretend it’s not happening. I would like to ask that, this Pesach,  people take the opportunity to stop pretending.”


The post Passover at Rikers Island: How the notorious jail complex holds a seder for Jewish inmates appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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US-Israeli Attack Triggers Fear and Panic in Iran

Buildings stand, after Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, February 28, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iranians fled cities in search of safety, and long queues formed at fuel stations as an attack on Iran by the United States and Israel spread fear and panic throughout the country.

When the strikes began on Saturday morning, explosions rocked Tehran and columns of smoke rose into the sky, shaking the city at the start of the Iranian working week.

Residents reached by phone described scenes of chaos and alarm as they rushed to collect their children from school or made preparations to leave home for now.

“We are going to our hometown in Yazd, Tehran is not safe anymore. They said roads are safe, but I am worried,” said Gholamreza, a Tehran shopkeeper and father of two. “I am leaving everything behind in Tehran.”

It marks the latest upheaval for Iranians weeks after thousands of people were killed in a government crackdown on nationwide unrest, and comes just eight months after last year’s 12-day war with Israel, during which the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran’s top security body said it expected attacks to continue on Tehran and some other cities, and urged people to “travel to other cities where possible so that you may remain safe from the harm of these two regimes’ acts of aggression.” Schools and universities would be closed until further notice.

“We are scared, we are terrified. My children are shaking, we have nowhere to go, we will die here,” said Minou, a 32-year-old mother of two from the northern city of Tabriz, one of many areas where explosions were reported.

“What is going to happen to my children?” she said, crying as she spoke by phone.

US President Donald Trump said the operation would end a security threat to the United States and offer Iranians a chance to topple their rulers. The Pentagon said that US strikes against Iran were named “OPERATION EPIC FURY.”

An Iranian from the central city of Yazd said he hoped the attack would topple the clerical establishment that has run the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “Let them bomb,” the resident of Yazd said.

Samira Mohebbi, speaking from the northern city of Rasht, disagreed.

“I am against this regime, to hell with them. But I don’t want my country to be attacked by foreign forces, I don’t want my Iran to turn into Iraq,” she said, referring to the neighboring country that suffered years of chaos and bloodshed following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

‘THEY FOOLED US AGAIN’

Security forces blocked roads in the area of Tehran that is home to the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and parliament, witnesses said.

The latest round of negotiations between the United States and Iran in Geneva on Thursday failed to secure a breakthrough over Tehran’s nuclear programme, though Omani mediators reported progress.

“They said the nuclear talks are going well. They fooled us again,” said a resident of Tehran.

Zohreh, 28, said she would leave the port city of Bushehr with her three-year-old daughter and go to her parents’ home in a village in northern Iran.

“Why are we paying this price? I want my daughter to grow up safe and in peace,” she said.

Western governments have long suspected Iran aims to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran has always denied this.

Witnesses said people were rushing to buy hard currency.

In Isfahan, another area where attacks were reported, some said they were unable to withdraw cash from ATMs.

Reza Saadati, 45, said he was taking his family to the city of Urumieh near the Turkish border. “If the border is open, we will cross and then fly to Istanbul,” he said.

Mohammad Esmaili, 63, speaking from the town of Ilam, some 500 km (300 miles) from Tehran, said he would leave the town with his family. “God knows what will happen to us. Pray for us,” he said.

“People are shocked, scared. What is going to happen to us? Save us please,” said a woman from Tehran.

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Prior to Iran attacks, CIA assessed Khamenei Would Be Replaced by IRCG Elements if Killed

Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attend an IRGC ground forces military drill in the Aras area, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, Oct. 17, 2022. Photo: IRGC/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

In the run-up to the US and Israeli attacks on Saturday, the US Central Intelligence Agency assessed that even if Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the operation, he would likely be replaced by hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), two sources briefed on the intelligence said.

The assessments, which were produced over the past two weeks, looked broadly at what could occur in Iran following a US intervention and the extent to which a military operation could trigger regime change in the Islamic Republic — now a pronounced objective for Washington.

The IRGC is an elite military force whose purpose is to protect Shi’ite Muslim clerical rule in Iran.

The intelligence agency reports did not conclude any scenario with certainty, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment.

President Donald Trump has for weeks signaled the US was interested in seeing regime change in Iran, but has not given in any detail Washington’s thinking on who could lead the country.

In an early morning video address on Saturday, Trump described Tehran as a “terrorist regime” and encouraged the Iranian people to take over the government, saying the US military strikes would set the stage for an uprising.

The US and Israeli assault comes after weeks of deliberation inside the US government about whether to strike Iran following the deadly protests that broke out there in December.

US officials in recent weeks have tried to strike a nuclear deal with Tehran in an attempt to stave off intervention.

In a briefing last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told top congressional lawmakers known as the Gang of Eight that a US operation would likely move forward, but that Trump could change his mind, particularly if nuclear negotiations were successful. Those talks in Geneva did not result in an agreement.

Rubio notified the Gang of Eight on Friday night that the operation to attack Iran was likely to commence in the following hours but said Trump could still change his mind, two sources familiar with the matter said.

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US and Israel Launched Military Operation Against Islamic Republic: This Is What We Know So Far

Iranian mourners wave the country’s flags while participating in a memorial ceremony for IRGC commanders, nuclear scientists, and civilians killed in the Iran-Israel war at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in downtown Tehran, Iran, on July 2, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.

i24 NewsIt’s been just over ten hours since the US and Israel launched operations “Epic Fury” and “Roaring Lion” against the Islamic Republic. And while this is still a developing story, here is what we know.

Just after 8 am local time the US and Israel launched a series of strikes on Iranian military targets across Iran. The main targets were Iran’s leaders and IRGC senior commanders in Iran and some targets in Iraq.

The IDF says it struck hundreds of targets, including ready-to-fire ballistic missile launchers. While there is no official confirmation of any specific eliminations, Iran’s foreign minister confirmed that some senior commanders were eliminated.

As Israeli and US strikes continued, Iran launched numerous ballistic missile barrages across Israel, and against six Arab countries, namely Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain, who all condemned the Iranian strikes on their territory. Iran claims it targeted US military bases in the region.

The escalation also saw a rare sign of unity between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, who have suffered from tense relations in recent weeks.

Iran has vowed to continue its strikes across the region, with Israeli officials saying they expect the strikes against Iran to continue for at least a few days.

While Iran has already turned this into a regional conflict, it still has potential to expand further. So far, neither Hezbollah in Lebanon nor Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq have joined the fray.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam sent a warning message to Hezbollah not to drag the country into, quote, “adventures that threaten its security and unity.”

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