oh such a pleasure to be here ok as you know with our shows we always open up with a prayer and we like to open up with the first or a chapter of the holy qur'an i will say the prayer in arabic as well as in english and for those in our viewing are to  all i do not hold the title rabbi in that i am not ordained by a particular rabbinic organization it turns out in my work it's an advantage because it gives me the city to work with all branches of judaism as along with one particular branch of judaism i mean chaplin chaplaincy is outreach to those in the community who because of their circumstances don't have the normal access to the community that would generally be people in the military people in hospitals and in my case people who are in prison i'm the regional coordinator for the two jewish prison chaplaincy programs and i am the first jewish chaplain for the washington state department of corrections i spend a good deal of my life traveling around the state around the region and also speaking have actually some seventeen i believe it is facilities for the washington state department of corrections prisons and work really centers prerelease enters a call there's one on the  side and one on the west side so i know you had to run in to mohamed to buy at some point in time yes actually but we haven't had the pleasure of working together so i have however only into many many people of the muslim faith and in fact because the as long a community doesn't have somebody in a capacity similar to mine where i traveling to all the facilities i am frequently accosted by or i would say accosted sought out by islamic inmates because in any way a for lack of a better term i've sort of become the champion of all minority religious denominations the staff chaplains at the prisons or exclusively christian they are supposed to be religious program managers however as in all prison systems and i have to say that washington probably leads the way when it comes to religious rights in prisons but it's not  and servicing our brothers and sisters in the prison system well it's very interesting because jewish inmates and islamic inmates are following in dealing with his family the same problems with the prison system dietary staff of the prisons the non clergy staff at the prisons don't realize the necessity for a religious dietary component for example and then necessity of meeting for prayer as we do three times a day three to five times a day of having certain religious property such as religious viewpoint and of course to us it's a necessity and also with them understanding this it would make for the better spiritual health of the inmates and for the better interaction between the staff certainly certainly a way to you know we think in terms of religious programs and prisons is being geared toward release when the person gets out in their reint community and we rarely focus on the fact that religious programs also help people to get through the time inmates who are involved in religious programs are much less of a management problem plain and simple simple they're applying their time positively plain and simple so then in referring to you i say refer to as chaplain gary free chaplain would be appropriate all right ok or gary ok i know we had talked a little bit prior to coming on the show about some of the issues in the prison that was similar to the muslim issues and the di is one we talked about oh that's the the major issues throughout the country the always the number one issue in prisons with jews and muslims and seventh day adventist stand and other minorities such as rosters for example and those religions that have a dietary component in their practice and one of the things is a common thread amongst us all is the pork issue yes and how do  you well i should say what type of cooperation do you have that the prison system terms of helping your own well varying degrees the state of washington takes a very proactive stance unfortunately though things take time and we've been working on religious diet programs very actively for the past couple of years and we're about to implement a a common fare type of program a religious diet that is acceptable to jews and muslims and those seven they had been assured not vegetarians he said though unfortunately these things do take time and it requires quite bitter training so what i'm going to have to do is go from facility to facility facility and train food service staff in handling procedures primarily in handling procedures because the menus and the products are going to be actually specified for them at the moment what we have is a non pork diet that is available a vegetarian diet that is also available these are optional diets that inmates can choose as opposed to therapeutic diets which have to be assigned in the medical staff any inmate who is of the jewish or muslim faith in they don't really have to substantiate this they just just make a statement that they are of that faith and requiring on poor diet can have it or a vegetarian diet if they prefer and this is in most prison systems this is consistent with those prison systems most jails there are some places particularly in the south however where the system is just not willing to make those accommodations with the diet program that we have come up with our biggest challenge has been to provide a religiously acceptable diet  and so to provide for a small group of be inmates a special diet can be a considerable expense however we now have the benefit of what is called the religious freedom restoration act that was passed by the federal government about a year ago i heard two years ago october fifth and it applies to the president as well as to the general community the religious freedom action restoration act states that no religious practice can be prohibited unless there is a compelling governmental interest in the case of the prisons would be safety or security the question of budget is a gray area in some some courts courts have actually generally ruled in favor of religious types as they had on a first amendment cases long before the religious freedom restoration act even if that compelling governmental interest exists they are still compelled to do things by the least restrictive means possible in other words find a solution find a way to do it and so the program that we have put together is an accommodation based on that religious diet program that we have put together this is applied in other areas for example the hand so certain colors are prohibited and we always have to make accommodations for those kind of things the fact that the western norm is that you uncover your head indoors and so generally when the inmates would go to the dining facility for example that they would be harassed by staff for having their heads covered and these are continuing problems there's also a security issue where some cillit has believe that you can hide something under your arm and hide something under two feet and yet they will allow them to grow their hair as long as they want and there's some serious conflict one of the one of the ones and i'm dealing with in the in the jewish is i think is a and i recently encountered a situation where the ruling was that inmates could have the flak tories if they cut off the straps of course therefore rendering them useless i countered and i said well you're telling me this i notice that inmates are allowed to wear heavy leather belts with buckles i see another inmate over in the corner here is playing guitar with steel guitar strings are you going to tell me that these ten strap s that hold these phylacteries on are any more dangerous than those well they conceded on that issue but then immediately found another issue which was can they be inspected in fact the boxes cannot be open that puts them just as much in charge on that note we want to take a break and introduce some inspiring words from he may have worked to mohammad the muslim spokesman for human salvation and i had a question i want to you when we come back on a break and that question is what advice do you have for the inmates in terms of their level of tolerance and the type of attitude that they should to help facilitate matters knowing bombing what would happen if people would sit in churches throughout the world for centuries with the image of an african american man as savior of the world before them what with this due to the mind of the world's children what would happen to the world's children put under a figure of a particular race presented pitiful and in pain the savior of all men the holy koran sore or chapter three verse sixty four sadness say old people of the book come to common terms as between us and you that we worship none but that we associate no partner with him that we are reg not from among ourselves lords and patrons other than god then they turn back say you bear witness that we at least are muslims ballet to god's will end of quote civilized nations should want that their religions be also civilized false worship is the worst form of all pressure we are no gods we are only men as the qur'an says mortals from the mortals he a law mouth we were just informed by the floor director that we don't have as much time as we thought we did but still i want to touch on that question in terms of the inmates participation and help helping facilitate the issue of them obtaining the benefits and the necessary religious accommodations that we would like to see them have well i think it's a matter of education and tolerance as much on the part of the inmates as on part of staff most staff members simply don't know what the religious requirements are what we've done is we've put together a handbook of religious beliefs and practices for the washington department that is now being is something like thirty other states around the country very good and in here we have various sections relating to all the denominations hopefully that would be encounter by staff chaplains and there is a section here on islam and there's a section on judaism and cetera can this be using this is a guy hopefully we can educate staff required to meet several times a day for prayer as in the case of jews at least three times a day muslims five times a day and this is not a general requirement in christianity this is prisons are also about routine and so this requires a certain amount of work on the part of staff and they're very resistant to us meeting on a regular basis for prayer but more than that there's a matter of who's going to lead purpose in judaism  have a go between the staff chaplains like are christian and so cannot lead our services then several prison systems have imposed a requirement that there has to be somebody there from the outside community and clergy or a lay person from the community in order for inmates to even meet for prayer very serious problem course what's happening is that the prison system is providing chaplains for christian inmates staff chaplains at the facilities for christian inmates but by and large they're not providing equal clergy for minority denominations they just can't afford to in my case i am the only jewish chaplain covering the entire state in fact the entire region we have contracted the mums from various communities who will go to certain facilities unfortunately though they cannot be there for every prayer call they cannot be there for particular religious festivals religious holidays because they're they're required to be with their family or their community and the system will not allow inmates to lead a prayer service and so very often we have a situation where they very simply cannot even meet for prayer or for study this can cause a lot of problems very serious problems and these are the kind of issues that we're dealing with i would say i recently had in the may for example told me that the more that the two communities work together that the more they found they had in common which was something i could have told him out front but he was so amazed by it that he looked at me and he said  how come jews muslims are killing each other on the outside and i thought that was rather ironic coming from a prison inmate yeah they have found that working for their common good has major benefits and i am very pleased to say that we have made a start with that here in our community yes thank you and on that note we would like to present you with a copy of the holy koran which is the muslim holy book and we're going to bring it out in one minute  you for more information as you see on the screen you have the phone number seven to six eight six nine three please call in field questions or comments or you'd like to be on the show and we leave you with the greetings of peace in arabic language