As of November 1, the Idaho Department of Correction will start offering a kosher menu to state prisoners following a settlement agreement of a ACLU of Idaho lawsuit in federal court. US Magistrate Judge Candy Dale will supervise the settlement agreement, under which state prisons will be serving kosher-certified food in pre-packaged, sealed servings.
The order and settlement agreement do not conclude the ongoing lawsuit. The federal court will now decide the compensation due the Jewish prisoners for the years during which they were forced to “defile themselves by eating religiously prohibited food,” the ACLU of Idaho reported last week.
The group of four Jewish prisoners who brought the lawsuit earlier this year, has issued a statement saying, “The spirit demands that we eat Kosher. It’s been an uphill battle, but we’re glad that we will finally be able to follow our religious tenets without having to go hungry anymore. An injury to one Jew is an injury to the whole Jewish community.”
“These prisoners exemplify the courage and determination that it takes to enforce constitutional rights,” said ACLU of Idaho’s Executive Director Leo Morales. “The State, including its prison officials, cannot prefer one religion over any other and this case reaffirms the basic constitutional principle of religious liberty. Jewish prisoners will now have access to nutritious meals that meet their religious needs, in the same manner in which other prisoners would have based on their religious needs.”
The four Jewish prisoners who brought the lawsuit represent a variety of Jewish practice, ranging from Orthodox to Reform, but all need kosher food to follow the basic dietary requirements of their religion. The case was filed this year just weeks after the end of Passover, during which two of the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit starved on only fruit and matzo because of IDOC’s refusal to provide meals that were kosher for Passover.
“For years Jewish inmates in Idaho prisons have had to choose between going hungry or violating the tenets of their faith,” said Craig Durham, of Ferguson Durham PLLC, a boutique civil and criminal litigation firm in Idaho. “It is because the prisoners in this cased decided to take a stand for equal justice under the law that the Idaho Department of Correction has changed its longstanding practice of denying Kosher meals to the observant.”