Rikers Island is 413 acres. It houses over 5,000 incarcerated individuals and 7,000 staff members. On the sixth night of Chanukah this year, six 12-foot illuminated menorahs stood lit across its grounds.
The celebration drew 250 participants and featured live performances by Yehudah Piamenta, Yossi Cohen, and Yoni Lorber, alongside magician Moshe Rotberg. Each attendee received their own menorah to take back to their unit for the remaining nights of the holiday.
The program provided quality food, inspirational videos, and distributed books — including Healthy in Body Mind and Spirit and On Purpose — for participants to keep.
What organizers did not plan for: an incarcerated man named Sam, observing the menorah from his cell window in a different unit, managed to reach them afterward. He had been transferred to an upstate facility and wanted to know if they could bring this there too. Within the bare, dark walls, one organizer wrote, his heart became warm.
The event was coordinated by Rabbi Zalman and Shmuly Tevel, with support from chaplains, volunteers, and a fundraiser to keep the programming going.
