Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

South Dakota Inmate Sues Over Kosher Violations

— A Jewish inmate in a South Dakota prison filed a lawsuit against corrections staff and a food company alleging that he received food that violated his kosher dietary restrictions.

James Irving Dale, who is serving a 15-year sentence for burglary at the Mike Durfee State Prison, alleged in a federal lawsuit that he was served a rice dish that contained pork products and flavoring, according to The Argus Leader.

Dale claimed that no rabbis visited the prison to certify his food kosher, and that utensils used for his food had also been used to serve food containing pork.

“This renders any food that these contaminated utensils come in contact with as unkosher even if said food starts out as kosher,” Dale said.

Dale, who suffers from hypoglycemia, said additional snacks he received due to his condition also were not kosher.

The Jewish inmate said he received the nonkosher food in September 2013 through October 2015, and is demanding damages of $301 for each nonkosher meal he was given, The Argus Leader reported.

Kosher dietary laws forbid Jews from eating pork.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.