Venezuelan Jew Sues Alabama Prison for Kosher Food

Protesters at Alabama’s Etowah County Detention Center demonstrate against U.S. immigration and deportation policies in 2014.
A Jewish man being held in a jail in Alabama has filed a federal lawsuit demanding that prison authorities serve him kosher food.
Rafael Alberto Lloveras Linares is a federal immigration detainee from Venezuela. He claims in his lawsuit that he is not being served kosher meals as required by federal law, according to the online edition of the Huntsville Times.
The lawsuit was filed last week in United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Linares said in his lawsuit that he met with the prison chaplain and complained that the meals he is being served are not kosher. He asked to be able to observe the Shabbat, meet with a rabbi once a month and to celebrate the major Jewish holidays.
A spokeswoman for the Etowah County Sheriff’s Department told the newspaper on Friday that the meals are prepared on-site and that they are kosher.
A federal law passed in 2000 calls on the prisons services to accommodate where possible prisoners’ religious practice.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which contracts with the county jail to house the immigration detainees, told the newspaper that it also works to accommodate detainees’ religious preferences.
“With the exception of fresh fruits and vegetables, the facility’s kosher-food purchases shall be fully prepared, ready-to-use, and bearing the symbol of a recognized kosher certification agency,” the agency’s policy reads. “Any item containing pork or a pork product is prohibited. Only bread and margarine labeled ‘pareve’ or ‘parve’ shall be purchased for the common fare tray.”
Linares has been detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency since July 2010, when h e was arrested for overstaying a 1995 tourist visa. He applied for asylum saying that as a Jew in Venezuela his life is in danger.
A federal judge has ordered him deported, but he has refused to board planes to return him to Venezuela four times. He has an arrest record which includes convictions for trespassing, driving with a suspended license and eluding law enforcement, according to the Huntsville Times.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Fast Forward Columbia staff receive texts asking if they’re Jewish, as government hunts antisemitic harassment on campus
In Case You Missed It
-
News At Harvard, reports on antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bias reflect campus conflict over Israel
-
Opinion Is JB Pritzker’s very Jewish toughness the key to fighting Trump?
-
Fast Forward Trump nominee Ed Martin, who praised a Nazi sympathizer, also compared Biden to Hitler
-
Opinion RFK Jr. and Trump are talking about an ‘autism registry’ — this sounds disturbingly familiar
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.