A Canadian Inmate Was Denied Kosher Food Because Her Background Looks Christian
Image by iStock
Hayden Patterson, an inmate at the Surrey Pretrial centre, has filed a complaint about being denied the kosher food she requested, claiming she has identified as Jewish since she was fifteen. Lawyers for the centre argue that her background looks Christian.
“She could not point to a single connection to the Jewish community prior to her incarceration,” Surrey Pretrial lawyers wrote in the application to dismiss Patterson’s complaint, as reported by News1130.
Tribunal member Devyn Cousineau disagrees with Surrey Pretrial’s lawyers, believing it to be a gatekeeping decision, and worthy of a hearing. A member of the BC Human Rights Tribunal will hear her out.
Patterson arrived at the Centre in 2014, requesting a gluten-free, wheat-free diet, calling it “a life or death matter,” as per the filing. In August 2016, Patterson filed a request for kosher food. Prison believe the fact that Patterson waited two years to request kosher food makes her request illegitimate. Patterson’s birth mother is not Jewish, her adoptive parents are Christian, and she has a history of rejecting vegetarian meals.
The kosher approval process in Canadian prisons relies on a chaplain’s interviewing the inmate about their faith. If the chaplain can verify via a rabbi or a synagogue that the inmate was a practicing Jew, the request is approved.
Shira Feder is a writer. She’s at [email protected] and @shirafeder
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.
