Sunday, April 10, 2011
Passover in women's prison celebrates freedom
Joni Cyran-Kaempfer celebrated the freedom of Passover on Sunday behind the red-brick walls and razor wire of California's sprawling women's prison here.
Cyran-Kaempfer, a 48-year-old Huntington Beach native, has six years left on a sentence for drug possession and fraud. But on Sunday, she broke unleavened bread and sang of liberation with the prison's other Jewish inmates and dozens of supporters, many from Orange County temples.
Article Tab : Former Huntington Beach resident, now inmate Joni Cyran-Kaempfer, left, dances with Judy Kollack of Makom Ohr Shalom Temple of San Fernando Valley, during the Passover celebration at California Institiution for Women in Corona. Cyran-Kaempfer, who is serving a 15-year sentence for drug possession, said she was transfered to the Corona Institution because of its program for Jewish inmates. It's very human and very needed, she said.
Former Huntington Beach resident, now inmate Joni Cyran-Kaempfer, left, dances with Judy Kollack of Makom Ohr Shalom Temple of San Fernando Valley, during the Passover celebration at California Institiution for Women in Corona. Cyran-Kaempfer, who is serving a 15-year sentence for drug possession, said she was transfered to the Corona Institution because of its program for Jewish inmates. "It's very human and very needed," she said.
Passover recalls the Biblical story of the ancient Israelites' escape from slavery in Egypt. The women who gathered in a multi-purpose room at the California Institution for Women on Sunday said they had their own escapes to celebrate – from drugs and depression, anger and crime.
"I feel completely free," said Cyran-Kaempfer, who has been in prison since 2002. She tapped her chest above her heart: "Truly, truly, it's right here."
For more than a decade, Jewish guests from the outside have checked through the prison's gates to help the small Jewish congregation inside celebrate Passover. Nearly 90 came on Sunday, bringing chicken and brisket and matzo ball soup, sharing tables with about 40 inmates in their prison-issued blue shirts.
It was a Passover preview, because the holiday really begins in about a week. It brought at least a dozen people from Temple Beth Tikvah in Fullerton, which helped coordinate the event, and several others from Temple Beth El in Aliso Viejo.
Dalya Ralston, 59, came from Seal Beach and said she learned a lesson by celebrating a holiday of freedom behind the walls of a prison.
"Even in the most difficult places, one can find within oneself that truth, that God," she said. "And no one can take that away."
Shari Stevens was hoping this would be her last Passover behind bars. She's 35, from the Bay area, with two months left on a fraud sentence. She had kicked her addiction to methamphetamine, she said – "my personal Egypt" – and that was the freedom she celebrated on Sunday.
"Even though I'm in here, I feel free, I feel liberated," she said. "That's what it is for me. My liberation."
http://www.ocregister.com/news/prison-295781-passover-sunday.html
Cyran-Kaempfer, a 48-year-old Huntington Beach native, has six years left on a sentence for drug possession and fraud. But on Sunday, she broke unleavened bread and sang of liberation with the prison's other Jewish inmates and dozens of supporters, many from Orange County temples.
Article Tab : Former Huntington Beach resident, now inmate Joni Cyran-Kaempfer, left, dances with Judy Kollack of Makom Ohr Shalom Temple of San Fernando Valley, during the Passover celebration at California Institiution for Women in Corona. Cyran-Kaempfer, who is serving a 15-year sentence for drug possession, said she was transfered to the Corona Institution because of its program for Jewish inmates. It's very human and very needed, she said.
Former Huntington Beach resident, now inmate Joni Cyran-Kaempfer, left, dances with Judy Kollack of Makom Ohr Shalom Temple of San Fernando Valley, during the Passover celebration at California Institiution for Women in Corona. Cyran-Kaempfer, who is serving a 15-year sentence for drug possession, said she was transfered to the Corona Institution because of its program for Jewish inmates. "It's very human and very needed," she said.
Passover recalls the Biblical story of the ancient Israelites' escape from slavery in Egypt. The women who gathered in a multi-purpose room at the California Institution for Women on Sunday said they had their own escapes to celebrate – from drugs and depression, anger and crime.
"I feel completely free," said Cyran-Kaempfer, who has been in prison since 2002. She tapped her chest above her heart: "Truly, truly, it's right here."
For more than a decade, Jewish guests from the outside have checked through the prison's gates to help the small Jewish congregation inside celebrate Passover. Nearly 90 came on Sunday, bringing chicken and brisket and matzo ball soup, sharing tables with about 40 inmates in their prison-issued blue shirts.
It was a Passover preview, because the holiday really begins in about a week. It brought at least a dozen people from Temple Beth Tikvah in Fullerton, which helped coordinate the event, and several others from Temple Beth El in Aliso Viejo.
Dalya Ralston, 59, came from Seal Beach and said she learned a lesson by celebrating a holiday of freedom behind the walls of a prison.
"Even in the most difficult places, one can find within oneself that truth, that God," she said. "And no one can take that away."
Shari Stevens was hoping this would be her last Passover behind bars. She's 35, from the Bay area, with two months left on a fraud sentence. She had kicked her addiction to methamphetamine, she said – "my personal Egypt" – and that was the freedom she celebrated on Sunday.
"Even though I'm in here, I feel free, I feel liberated," she said. "That's what it is for me. My liberation."
http://www.ocregister.com/news/prison-295781-passover-sunday.html
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