Michigan Prisoners Sue For Kosher Meals
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — Jews incarcerated in Michigan prisons are seeking class-action status in a lawsuit that claims they are being denied kosher meals.
The lawsuit filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Flint, Michigan against the Michigan Department of Corrections claims there are 50 to 100 Jewish prisoners approved to get kosher meals and that requests to receive them have been refused by the corrections department.
The lawsuit originally was filed in 2013 on behalf of inmate Michael Arnold by attorney Daniel Manville, who is with the Michigan State University Civil Rights Clinic, the MLive news website reported. That lawsuit charged that the prisoners were forced to eat vegan meals instead of kosher ones.
The Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union announced in 2013 that it had reached a final settlement with the Michigan Department of Corrections officials over accommodating the dietary needs and worship schedules of Muslim prisoners, including providing Halal meals and giving time for prayers. The lawsuit in that case had been filed in 2006.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
