Becoming Sincere: Why Do Jewish Inmates in Israeli Prisons Embrace Religion?

Abstract

Why do Jewish inmates in Israeli prisons embrace religion? What initially motivates them to participate in prayers during incarceration and what are their motivations to make a deeper commitment to observe orthodox Judaism while in prison? We conducted 30 qualitative interviews with 29 Jewish–Israeli men who underwent a process of “religious invigoration” or “religious strengthening” during their prison term and chose to continue being observant following release. We examine their motivations to initially participate in the less restrictive prison seminaries as well as their motivations to transfer to religious wards where incarcerated men must commit to a fully religious lifestyle. Building on the scholarship on the motivations and benefits of religious participation and conversion in prison, we suggest that incarcerated Jewish–Israeli men embrace religion for both sincere reasons and for the extrinsic benefits. Those who progress to a second stage of religious observance and transfer to religious wards do so primarily for extrinsic benefits. However, they report many intrinsic benefits of religion that lead them to continue to pursue religion once released. We suggest that men have different motivations at different stages of the path of religious invigoration in prison but that those men who commit to observance gain intrinsic benefits that may give them sincere reasons to continue religion upon reentry.

Keywords

Israel jailhouse religion prison religion Judaism motivations

Introduction

A popular perception in the Israeli public sphere is that Jewish men after arrest on suspicion of criminal acts immediately embrace superficial signs of religiosity. They put on a yarmulke (skullcap) and begin growing a beard to look more religious. Israel’s national news has called Jewish jailhouse conversions “an Israeli phenomenon”¹ as notorious criminals, even crime kingpins, appear routinely in the news media wearing yarmulkes during court hearings. The media cynically questions their sincerity, insinuating instrumental motivations. Skepticism is also common in the reception of “jailhouse conversions” elsewhere (Maruna et al., 2006).

Prison conversions to Evangelical Christianity and Islam occur widely in U.S. and European prisons (Dammer, 2002; Duwe et al., 2015; Hallett et al., 2015; Hallett & Johnson, 2014; Kerley & Copes, 2009). The scholarship looks both at participation in religious and spiritual activities in prison, such as bible study, as well as “radical change” among prisoners who experience “new found or greatly revitalized faith” accompanied by a change in their behaviors, social affiliations, attitudes, thoughts, and self-understandings (Maruna et al., 2006, p. 162). This type of conversion often involves “a singular moment of commitment to faith” that is often conceived of as being “born again” (Kerley & Copes, 2009, p. 228).

This article looks at a particular path of embracing religion that has become popular in Israel prisons among Jewish men over the past two decades. Referred to as “religious strengthening” or “religious invigoration” (hithazkut), it involves a strengthening in belief and intensification of performance of religious practices in daily life without the same level of commitment as the full path of repentance known as hazara betshuva (Leon & Lavie, 2013). On this path, one is not “born again” in a radical sense but is more involved in religion than before, perhaps wearing a skullcap and attending prayers but adopting more restrictive religious obligations gradually and selectively.

The wide scope of the phenomenon of religious invigoration in Israeli prisons is exemplified in the levels of participation in religious seminaries (midrashiot) operated by rabbis and seminary students within the prison system. Attended by approximately 1,200 inmates—around one-fourth of incarcerated Jewish–Israeli men, the number of these seminaries expanded threefold from 2007 to 2016.² Participants must be Jewish, literate, and have a minimum of 8 years education; they agree to attend morning prayers and Torah (bible) study classes but are not required to lead a religious lifestyle (Haviv et al., 2019). Prisoners who wish to practice a further level of observance can transfer to separate, religious wards that are more selective; to be admitted, prisoners must commit to an intensive schedule of prayer and religious study groups. They must also observe religious rituals, including wearing a yarmulke (skullcap), keeping kosher dietary laws, and refraining from turning on lights and watching television on the Sabbath.

In comparison with the large number of men in the seminaries, fewer inmates transfer to religious wards—approximately 450 inmates as of 2018 (Haviv et al., 2020). Still, these wards are growing in number, indicating that the number of men wishing to commit further to the path of religious invigoration is also expanding. From 2010 to 2016, the number of religious wards in Israeli prisons doubled, from three to six across the country. Two of these wards (the leshem wings) are for inmates who were ultraorthodox sector before imprisonment, but four (the agaf dati wings) comprised inmates who embraced religion during incarceration, many having first participated in seminaries and choosing to commit to the more demanding obligations of religious observance in these wings.

A recent quantitative study by Haviv et al. (2020) indicated that the risk of recidivism was not lower for seminary participants in Israeli prisons in comparison with nonparticipant Jewish men. However, for men who first participated in the seminaries and later transferred to the religious wards, the relative risk of rearrest within 5 years of release was 12.4% lower than among nonparticipant Jewish men. The study indicates that as men become more committed to religion, they are less likely to recidivate; yet, it does not explain what motivates incarcerated Jewish men to initially embrace religion in prison or why they may choose to commit further to this path over time.

Our qualitative study explores the motivations and benefits of religious invigoration in prison. We interviewed 29 men who progressed through two stages on this path: (a) participation in the religious seminaries and (b) transfer to religious wards. The men in our study had all been released from their most recent prison term into a religious reentry program run by the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority. To enter the reentry program, they had to commit to attending religious group study sessions and one-on-one counseling with a religious counselor for at least a year. By exploring the path of these men, who went through these stages of religious invigoration and chose to continue to “strengthen” religiously on the outside, we can better understand the various stages of the invigoration process in prison and its benefits. Elsewhere (Morag & Teman, 2018), we have described the religious reentry program and the religious tools that men felt helped them negotiate their return to society. Here, our focus is on the stages of religiosity during incarceration.

Our findings suggest that the men had different motivations at each stage of the path. They had some intrinsic but mainly extrinsic motivations for initial participation in the seminaries and for transferring to the religious wards. The men reported many intrinsic benefits of religiosity they had gained on this path, and these were their primary motivations to continue pursuing religion after release. Our findings challenge the insincere/sincere dichotomy in the scholarship by suggesting the possibility of motivations gradually changing at different stages as men embrace religion during incarceration, from predominantly insincere to primarily sincere motivations. This is discussed in relation to the scholarship on motivations for religious participation in prison.

Literature Review

An extensive body of evidence has accumulated on religion-based programs within prisons and their effect on the reform of the incarcerated (Camp et al., 2008; Clear & Sumter, 2002; Duwe & Johnson, 2013; Johnson, 2004; Mears et al., 2006; O’Connor & Perreyclear, 2002). The research clearly distinguishes between various motivations for becoming religious in prison, as well as the benefits of participation in religious programs while incarcerated.

Based on his ethnographic study of two large maximum security prisons in the United States, Dammer (2002) distinguishes between motivations his interviewees identified as “sincere”—meaning legitimate or genuine—and those they viewed as “insincere,” stemming from negative or manipulative purposes. Insincere motivations included protection from physical harm, the sense of safety to be gained from being part of a religious group, convergence with fellow inmates from different wards for the purpose of socialization or for passing contraband, accessing free goods and individual favors from the chaplain, as well as contact with female religious volunteers. Sincere reasons for involvement in religion included psychological and behavioral conditions gained from religious practice such as hope for the future, peace of mind, motivation, direction and meaning for life, improved self-esteem, the development of self-control, and becoming less violent and aggressive.

Several researchers have also identified common benefits beyond the specific characteristics of different religions (Aday et al., 2014; Clear et al., 2000; Dammer, 2002; Hallett et al., 2016; Kerley & Copes, 2009; Maruna et al., 2006; Santos & Lane, 2013). Following Allport and Ross (1967), the scholarship distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic benefits of religious participation. Extrinsic benefits include enhanced safety, better access to material comforts, and increased access to visitors (Clear et al., 2000; Clear & Myhre, 1995). Others suggest that religion in prison has social benefits, which include strengthening prisoners’ social networks and providing emotional support (Kerley & Copes, 2009; Kerley et al., 2006). Religion is shown to help inmates deal with the emotional isolation of imprisonment and the feeling of being unsafe and at risk, promoting a sense of solidarity and higher purpose (Thomas & Zaitzow, 2006).

Intrinsic benefits include easing the process of an inmate’s psychological adjustment to imprisonment, helping to manage or reduce shame and guilt feelings, and helping prisoners regain their dignity, improve self-esteem, and identify a positive horizon. Studies also suggest that religious involvement of prisoners can improve prisoner welfare by serving as a psychological coping mechanism, preventing dehumanization and devaluation and fostering survival (Clear et al., 2000), by providing the soothing and comforting effect of belief in a higher power and the feeling of purpose or meaning in life (Clear et al., 2000; Dammer, 2002).

Our study further develops the scholarly conversation on the motivations and benefits of religious participation in the prison environment by offering a case study of a group of Jewish men in Israeli prisons who progressed through two stages of religious participation—seminary participation, then incarceration in religious wards—followed by entering a religious reentry program upon release. Our findings indicate that although their motivations leaned more toward the extrinsic at both stages, those who committed to the intensive program of the religious wards experienced intrinsic benefits that motivated them to continue practicing religion following release.

We extend Dammer’s (2002) sincere/insincere model by arguing that insincere motivations can become sincere and add to Clear et al.’s (2000) discussion of intrinsic and extrinsic benefits of religious participation by arguing that extrinsic benefits can generate intrinsic motivations to continue on the path toward repentance. Finally, the study continues Timor’s (1997; 1998) pioneering work on religion as a rehabilitative vehicle in Israeli prisons and provides an empirical case study of the particular form of religiosity—“religious invigoration”—practiced among incarcerated Jewish–Israeli men.

Method

This article is based on 30 qualitative, semistructured interviews, carried out between 2013 and 2014, with a convenience sample of 29 men who had been released from prison between 2 months and 5 years earlier into the religious reentry program (one man was interviewed twice). The men ranged in age from 22 to 50 years with an average age of 30 years. All interviews began with the request to describe the interviewee’s path toward religion (prompts: What drew you to religion? What has kept you religious? Was the home you grew up in religious?). Next, we asked them to describe the different stages on the path to becoming religious (prompts: Did it happen all at once? What was the first step?). Interviewees were then asked about persons and texts that influenced their path, what changes they have experienced, and about their choice to enter the religious reentry program upon release and their experiences in the program.

All the men had initially entered prison identifying as nonreligious and were drawn to religious practice during incarceration. Table 1 shows basic demographic data as well as how they classified their religious background upon incarceration: 15 were completely secular; 10 were raised in traditional homes, meaning the family observed some rituals such as lighting Sabbath candles but did not follow orthodox lifestyle; and four had been orthodox as children but had left religion in their early teens.

Table 1.

Characteristics of Our Interviewees (All Names Are Pseudonyms).

Interview	Name	Crime	Age	Religious background	District
1	Amos	Robbery	28	Secular	Beer Sheba
2	Nathan	Drug use and violence	22	Secular	Beer Sheba
3	Abraham	Violence	24	Secular	Beer Sheba
4	Benjamin	Drug use	22	Secular	Beer Sheba
5	Michael	Drug dealing	35	Traditional	Haifa
6	Noah	Robbery	22	Orthodox till 13	Haifa
7	Adam	Drug dealing	27	Orthodox till 12	Haifa
8	Jacob	Manslaughter	30	Secular	Haifa
9	Levi	Drug dealing	29	Secular	Maale Adumim
10	Levi	Drug dealing (second interview with Interviewee 10 after 9 months)	29	Secular	Maale Adumim
11	Lior	Attempted murder	22	Traditional	Maale Adumim
12	Gideon	Robbery	28	Traditional	Maale Adumim
13	Dan	Gang leader	55	Traditional	Maale Adumim
14	Haim	Destruction of property	31	Secular	Maale Adumim
15	Samuel	Violence/drug use/gang member	35	Secular	Maale Adumim
16	David	Unavailable	30	Secular	Maale Adumim
17	Ari	Money laundering	40	Secular	Jerusalem
18	Omer	Attempted murder	35	Secular	Jerusalem
19	Ezra	Gang leader	47	Traditional	Jerusalem
20	Elad	Unavailable	30	Traditional	Jerusalem
21	Akiva	Money laundering and tax evasion	50	Traditional	Jerusalem
22	Ezekiel	Drug dealing and money laundering	30	Secular	Jerusalem
23	Gabriel	Money laundering and tax evasion	40	Traditional	Jerusalem
24	Eli	Drug dealing	28	Secular	Tel Aviv
25	Eran	Money laundering	40	Secular	Tel Aviv
26	Simon	Manslaughter	26	Secular	Tel Aviv
27	Hillel	Violence	30	Traditional	Tel Aviv
28	Absalom	Money laundering	50	Traditional	Tel Aviv
29	Matan	Breaking and entering	23	Orthodox till 14	Tel Aviv
30	Naftali	Violence	20	Orthodox till 12	Tel Aviv

To ensure as heterogonous a sample as possible, we included representatives from each geographical area where the religious reentry program has offices, as shown in Table 1. We also included interviewees who differed from one another in relation to the number of years they had been incarcerated, the crimes they had been convicted of, the number of times incarcerated, number of years of education, and ethnic background (Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews).

All the interviews were conducted by a team of three student research assistants, digitally recorded with the consent of the interviewee and transcribed. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority. We asked for informed consent at the beginning of each interview, anonymized all identifying information, asking interviewees to provide only their initials and not their names. Interviewees were assured they could end the interview at any time or bypass questions. We also visited two religious wards and met with rabbis and social workers involved with these wards to learn more about the program.

Applying a modified model of the grounded theory process outlined by Glaser and Strauss (1967), all interviews were coded by the two lead researchers for emergent themes until a theoretical framework emerged. First, we read each interview and openly coded the data for emergent themes. Next, we made lists of recurring meta-themes: rituals, symbols, kippah, God, motivations, instrumental benefits, and so forth. Third, we organized and connected between specific themes creating meta-categories, which allowed us to identify the theoretical framework. We follow Dammer’s (2002) guidelines for presenting views of interviewees who said similar things: “the interviewees” or “most interviewees” is used when 75% or more men expressed the same motivation and “some” (25% or slightly more).

Results

Stage 1: Motivations for Participating in the Seminary Program

The typical steps interviewees took on their path began with seminary participation: attending morning prayers and bible classes, participating in Sabbath prayers and festive meals. Seminary participants lived in regular wards where they could watch television and smoke on the Sabbath and did not have to adhere to further religious obligations. For this reason, the men in our study, who had eventually progressed in their religious commitment and transferred to the religious wards, often spoke of the majority of men participating in the seminaries as a pretense, that they believed would be eventually shed upon release. Ezra described the seminary as full of posers wearing “costumes” and “masks,” with an analogy to the Jewish holiday of Purim, when it is customary to dress up in costumes, like on Halloween: “Some are imposters, it’s a Purim fest all year long.”

When asked about the large number of seminary participants in prison, our interviewees suggested that some incarcerated men adopt superficial signs of religiosity, such as wearing a yarmulke, to get early parole. Lior explained,

So people want to get out of prison, of course, why shouldn’t they put on a yarmulke if it helps? Sure they will. They would put on ten yarmulkes in order to get out of prison, whatever it takes, and people do that.

Ezekiel noted, “You have people with yarmulkes who aren’t exactly religious. It’s part of the pretense. They put on a yarmulke and they call it a ‘prison yarmulke.’ They go to court hearings with it on, but they aren’t truly repentant.”

When we asked what had initially attracted our interviewees toward religion, half reported a motivation that can be classified as sincere, whereas the remainder can be classified as insincere. The first motivation was the sincere, instinctive plea or cry to God for help upon arrest and during early incarceration. Adam said,

You experience a real trauma, at least I did. My first prison term, I had never been arrested in my life. I felt uneasy and a need to pray, to cry out to someone. You have nowhere else to turn. I became religious because it was a place to escape to.

Eran said, “I felt like I had fallen off a cliff. I was mentally shattered. I turned to God and asked for help.”

Nearly half of the men described such a moment in which they felt so alone that they turned to God in desperation. Dan recalled his extreme loneliness in solitary confinement:

I was alone, in a dark room, unable to see outside, unable to see the sky. For a long time. It was a very tough place to be in . . . I would read in solitude, alone, twenty three hours a day. When I got to Tsalmon (prison’s) religious wing, my religion strengthened [hitchazkti].

Hillel said, “I sat in that room alone in jail and I looked to the sky and I said to God, ‘If you get me out of here I will become religious.”

These men noted that the desperation of solitude left them no other choice but to turn to God, as Gideon noted, “It came from a lack of choice. I was in a bit of a crisis, had a feeling of emptiness, that there is nothing else. That was my refuge . . . that’s how I came closer to religion.” Ezra said, “When you are alone with four walls, you start to connect to God,” whereas Haim remembered,

Everything collapsed around me . . . I was lonely, really lonely . . . There was nothing left around me and no one to talk to . . . I had no one to cry out to. I truly sought out someone to help me then. And I only had Him to turn to, to God.

The men also spoke of such a crisis moment as an explanation for the mass embrace of religion in prison compared with relatively few men who continue to progress upon the path. Elad saw it as a common response to any crisis situation:

Any Jew who has trouble, a nightmare, illness, they will open up a book of Psalms and read it. If you go to the hospital you see people reading Psalms. A person in trouble looks for something to cling to. So people start to become religiously stronger in prison, to learn, but they have vested interests, they may not continue with it after.

Eli said,

When a person is in distress it is easy to connect with religion, because in prison there is nothing else. Religion is your only hope. There are some who take it with them when they leave and some who leave it there.

The second motivation that nearly all the men reported for seminary participation was extrinsic—to fill the boredom of prison life. Almost all interviewees described the time in prison as “dead time” with no alternatives to fill the gaps. Akiva explained, “In prison you have time. There is nothing else to do. Religion can fill up your time,” and Noah noted, “Here on the outside you say ‘I don’t have the time.’ In prison you don’t have a problem going to prayers. The opposite, it helps you pass the time.” Amos noted, “In prison you have nothing on your mind, not work, not kids, not anything. Just sit and study,” whereas Lior recalled,

I thought, I am in prison anyway, there is nothing else to do there. I don’t smoke, there is nothing standing in my way, so why not keep the Sabbath. I started, and slowly I got used to it, and then I began to wear a yarmulke.

A third motivation that drew men to the seminaries was because the prayers nostalgically reminded them of traditions some of their families had kept during their childhood. Gabriel said, “You feel like you are going back to the place where you should have been all along, (the place) that you have always known, but that you suddenly deserted.” As Table 1 shows, 10 of the men were raised in traditional homes, where they celebrated Friday night Sabbath dinner with their families, and four men were raised orthodox before leaving the faith. For these men, Sabbath prayers in the seminary were comforting. Abraham said, “It is fun, being all together, everyone singing together on the Sabbath.”

The final motivation we heard for seminary participation was that morning prayers and bible classes in the seminary program reduce the number of hours that inmates are otherwise required to work. Samuel explained, “If I go to the seminary [midrashiya], I don’t go to the factory.”

Whereas most participants in the seminaries do not ask to be transferred to the religious wards, our interviewees chose to commit to the intensive program and religious obligations in the wards. In the next section, we explore their motivations to continue on this path.

Stage 2: Motivations for Transferring to the Religious Wards

The request to be transferred to the religious wards, where daily routines were structured around intensive religious practice, was regarded by all our interviewees as entailing sacrifice and more commitment to religion than required for seminary participation. In the religious ward, they took part in three daily prayer sessions, strict observance of kosher dietary rules, adherence to the rules of observing Sabbath and religious holidays (not working on the Sabbath, refraining from using electricity), and attending mandatory religious study groups. The most difficult sacrifice that interviewees mentioned when moving into the religious wards was giving up smoking, using the phone, and watching television on the Sabbath.

Nearly all the men spoke about moving to the religious wards as the next step up, using a staircase metaphor for their path of religious invigoration. Abraham noted, “I did it in stages. Anyone who goes up a staircase all at once will fall, so I went up each stair slowly . . . one step at a time.” Ezra said,

I did it step by step. First I began keeping the Sabbath, not using the phone. You’ve got to go up one step at a time and hold onto the railing . . . Those were the stages when I started putting on a kippah, then the prayer shawl, prayers, (kosher) food, blessings, praying and thank God.

These sacrifices were difficult, as Samuel explained: “To be observant isn’t easy. You have to take on limits. People pray in the beginning but when it gets difficult they make a u-turn. When you move into the religious wing it is an acute transition. No television.”

The men’s reasons for asking to be transferred to the religious wards included one sincere motivation alongside several extrinsic ones. The first, sincere motivation was to be in a place where it would be easier to fulfill religious obligations, such as keeping the Sabbath without temptations. Nathan said,

I wanted to get up to pray, but it is hard to pray alone, I prefer to pray in a group (minyan). In the regular ward you can sleep till ten, eleven, but in the religious ward you have to wake up for prayers. And that hardship was comfortable for me, I wanted it.

Benjamin explained,

On the Sabbath in the religious wings everyone keeps the Sabbath. You are not tempted with phone calls or cigarettes or someone listening to music or watching TV while you are trying to pray. On the Sabbath everyone prays together, eats together, 40-50 men singing together. You really enjoy the Sabbath. In the regular wards, no way.

The second, extrinsic motivation was being drawn to the community-like atmosphere in comparison with regular wards. This was experienced at its fullest, as Benjamin’s words above suggest, on the Sabbath, through shared preparation and observance of Sabbath meals and the camaraderie of group prayers and communal singing of Sabbath hymns. Almost all interviewees described the sense of cohesion and solidarity, the atmosphere of acceptance, and the feeling of “being embraced” in the religious wards. Eran noted,

When I got to the religious ward I saw it was the best place in prison, people were more considerate. They supported me and treated me well. It caressed my soul, let me feel the Sabbath. In other wings, everyone eats one another like animals. It is a zoo.

A third motivation for transferring to the religious wards was because they believed there were privileges there, such as superior living conditions: better food, longer periods of time in exercise yards, and improved conditions during family visits. Naftali asked to transfer after noticing such benefits: “I saw that those who became truly more religious, they would tell them—go outside, you have another hour in the yard.” Benjamin said,

There are many privileges. In other wards I was in we were not allowed to cook, but in the religious ward you can. And good food in prison comforts you. In the religious ward every two weeks is open visitation and you can hold your kid. Those were my privileges, those were my interests.

Some interviewees also claimed that there was a better chance for early parole “on good behavior”—reduction of prison term by a third—for those in the religious wards, in comparison with inmates in secular sections.

The fourth, and most common motivation for transferring to a religious ward, was that it was perceived by the men as a safer place. Interviewees emphasized that inmates were closely screened prior to their transfer into the religious wards according to their personal profile and behavior. A candidate for the ward with behavioral or drug issues would be barred from entering, and screening seems to keep out the more violent and dangerous prisoners. Gabriel noted,

It’s because that place is the best place in prison, neutralized of all of the issues . . . There are no battles in the ward . . . if you’re not coming there to fight, that’s what the religious rehabilitation is for.

He relayed that the religious ward “lessens the dangers you confront, lessens the wars, it makes a selection,” and noted that the ward is particularly suited for new, younger inmates who do not have an extensive criminal background and who may be unable to defend themselves from violence and rape in the general wards:

It’s usually weaker people who get a sort of protection there . . . it’s a refuge for them . . . Poor things, kids. We the strong ones are not afraid. But kids, it’s hard for them to survive their term, so they need it, they need this place. In due time, the time will come when they’ll become more religious. Otherwise they’re doomed.

Interviewees described how they felt safer and less anxious in the religious ward. Dan highlighted that nonreligious wards have a higher number of dangerous, life-threatening incidents, such as stabbings and violence:

To be in the regular wards isn’t easy . . . There are really tough things there, whether it is having boiling water poured on you, whether it is stabbing, it’s not easy in those wards. The religious ward, that’s a calmer place.

Statistics from the Israel Prison Service show the percentage of “negative incidents” in the religious wards—including violence against fellow prisoners and staff, self-harm, sexual harassment, damaging property, delays in returning from home visits, and disturbance of the peace—is 4.5 times lower than that of the regular wards. The number of incidents in all six of the religious wards from June 2015 to June 2016 was 24 (0.07 incidents per prisoner per year) versus 975 (0.32 incidents per prisoner per year).³

The fifth motivation men reported was the desire to live among Jews separate from Arab inmates. In their lives outside of prison, our interviewees did not have close, regular, and intense interactions with Muslim Arab men as they did in prison; living together in secular wards was often a hotbed of tension, both because of cultural differences (such as mutual stereotypes, different taste in music, television) and political tensions mirroring the ongoing Palestinian–Israeli conflict. It is not uncommon to have tensions erupt between Jewish and Muslim Arab prisoners after a terrorist attack is reported in the national news (personal communication with head rabbi of Dekel prison, June 9, 2016).

Interviewees spoke of their desire for separation from Muslim Arab inmates, portraying them with prejudice, as interviewee Lior noted: “In prison they (the Arabs) make trouble. They don’t know how to behave.” They described a ward “without Arabs” as an advantage and sometimes a critical factor in their willingness to enter the religious ward. Samuel explained, “I wanted to be in a ward of Jews, only with Jews. I’ve had enough of their (the Arabs’) prayers . . . Here there are no Arabs, which is the biggest advantage.”

In the above, we have suggested that both the men’s initial motivations for participation in religious seminaries and their further step of transferring to the religious wards were largely what might be viewed as extrinsic, although they also had sincere motivations. In the next section, we argue that no matter what motivated them, the men who eventually completed their incarceration in the religious wards and entered the religious reentry program reported intrinsic benefits from religious invigoration.

Stage 3: The Intrinsic Benefits of Religion

No matter what initially brought them to embrace religion, interviewees reported intrinsic benefits from the intensive program of the religious wards. The first was what they identified as religion providing tranquility and calmness of both body and mind, helping them find refuge from internal turmoil and physical hyperactivity. Akiva said, “I settled down. I am calmer. Before this I wouldn’t have been able to sit on this chair for more than twenty minutes straight.” Others described the soothing effect of prayer in terms of a drug, as Gideon noted, “Religion is my medicine.”

Some men described specific religious practices, such as adorning phylacteries (tefillin), reciting prayers, and singing Sabbath songs, as affecting their behavior. Dan said, “If I don’t put on tefillin, then I feel something is missing. If I don’t put tefillin I’m nervous, restless.” For some interviewees, religious practice generated optimism and reassured them, as Jacob noted,

When I put tefillin in the morning I have a feeling that my whole day will work out . . . even if it doesn’t work out I’ll be okay . . . when I don’t put tefillin on in the morning, I have a bad day.

The second intrinsic benefit of the men reported was what they perceived as a chance for a fresh start, allowing their soul to be pure again. Nathan said of being in the religious ward, “They accept you as you are, not who you were, without your past. Just like that, as you are, a new page.” Haim said, “It is as if I was sort of created anew, reborn. Yes, I am reborn. I see how things were created, Adam and Eve and all of that.” Referencing the biblical creation story of Adam and Eve evokes returning to a naive state where there is no background of sin, and Haim can be granted a “clean slate” even though he cannot erase his criminal past. These texts echo those documented by Maruna et al. (2006) in their study of conversion narratives of imprisoned men in the United Kingdom. Drawing on Evangelical Christian doctrine, the men believed that in being saved by Christ, their past life had been “washed clean” and their past forgiven.

The chance for such a new start, through the Jewish path of repentance (teshuva), was perceived by all interviewees as a possible and reachable option for anyone, even a murderer. Adam said,

There is the option of repentance for anyone. God tells us that even if you have murdered someone, you have penance. I believe theft is lesser than murder—so I believe He’ll forgive me for theft. That’s what I see in my mind. I want him to forgive me.

Interviewees often quoted Rabbi Israel Salanter of the Musar movement—“as long as the candle is still burning you can amend.”

Interestingly, the men’s vernacular or folk religious interpretation of repentance (teshuva) diverges from the formal rabbinical debates, too numerous to account for here, where the stages of repentance include the sinner’s recognition of his wrongdoings, feeling sincere remorse, and doing everything in his power to undo any damage that has been done. In such a case, a murderer cannot repent because he cannot undo the damage, and a “clean slate” is impossible without remorse. However, in our interviewees’ folk interpretation, teshuva is open for all and does not necessarily require these precursors.

Avoiding dealing with the past was also not necessarily what the prison rabbis wanted the prisoners to internalize. The religious programs envision religious rehabilitation as beginning with introspection and remorse, writing in their formal brochure: “Religious rehabilitation is built on three stages: acknowledging the sin, remorse for the action and its consequences, and true commitment with a full heart not to repeat the action.” Our interviewees, however, tended to be attracted to a Hassidic sect that follows the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslav, because they understood his teachings as not requiring extensive prying into the past. The head of the religious reentry program explained this principle in Breslav teachings:

It is easier for a person not to confront the past . . . It is just like stirring water in a barrel. It might raise up the sand and muck from the bottom and turn the water murky so that you can’t see through it.

Later, he quoted part of a song that inmates in the religious ward often sing: “What was, is past, the important thing is to start from the beginning. Father, renew me completely, light up my soul.”

The third intrinsic benefit the men gained from religion was shame management (see also Maruna et al., 2006). They described the conventional therapy groups and individual therapy that they had taken part in as more difficult to relate to because social workers using conventional therapeutic techniques expect them to “dig into” the past, examine the roots of criminal tendencies, take responsibility for previous actions, exhibit remorse, and feel shame. Conversely, interviewees described the prison rabbis in these wings as exhibiting a less judgmental attitude toward them than social workers, enabling them to “save face” and retain their dignity. Nathan said, “They accept you there. No one judges one another. They accept you no matter what. It is not a judgmental group.”

Haim compared participation in conventional therapy groups using peer feedback or “mirroring” critiques with the shame management enacted in group therapy in the religious wing. He noted the religious prohibition of embarrassing others in public, which is prohibited in Jewish law and discussed in the Talmud as comparable with murder (Talmud Baba Metzia 59a): “People can judge you and all that in regular therapy . . . in religion you have the values, you have to respect one another and not shame them in front of others.”

The fourth intrinsic benefit of religiosity in prison was what the men viewed as spiritual repair, the ability to fix one’s past spiritual imprint. Once versed in the religious worldview, the men learned to describe their penance through the idea drawn from Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) of tikkun (Samuel, 2014), identifying penance as a process of tikkun (mending, repair, or spiritual rectification) in reaction to kilkul (destruction, or spiritual damage) and citing the verse “If you believe you can break it [likalkel], believe you can fix it [litaken].” The kabbalistic idea of tikkun is far too complex to address fully here; however, it is important to note that divine worship, fulfilling the commandments of the Torah (mitzvot), and studying Torah are human actions that are believed to repair spiritual damage and rectify the human soul and the world according to this belief system.

According to the interviewees, their criminal acts in the past were kilkul (spiritual damage), whereas religious penance enables them tikkun (spiritual rectification). Tikkun, for them, entails learning to be more patient, less greedy, and to be humble. Interviewees often remarked, as Samuel did, that “this was my amendment, my atonement.” Tikkun is not perceived as a singular moment but as ongoing. For Jacob, tikkun is perceived as a lifelong process: “(I wish myself) penance [tshuva]. Because there are still things to amend. Always. Even when you reach the age of 80. There will still be things to amend.”

Some interviewees explained return incarcerations as fated by their ongoing path of tikkun, because the prior tikkun was incomplete. Gideon said,

I came for another prison term. I guess it is hard for me to fix myself [litaken] . . . I wasn’t religiously fortified [lo hitchazakti] enough after my first imprisonment. I came back home and didn’t keep the Sabbath, so God sent me here again to become religiously stronger [le’hitchazek].

Along with the ongoing process of tikkun, certain interviewees addressed a formal ritual ceremony of Kabbalistic tikkun, thought to physically implement the process. Such ceremonies have become popular in the Israeli public sphere among both religious and secular Israelis, adopted as healing rituals in the context of what has become known as “Kabbalah for the masses,” including Kabbalistic Torah learning seminaries (yeshivot) and pilgrimage sites of Saint veneration (see Bilu et al., 1992; Sharabi & Guzmen-Carmeli, 2013).

Prisoners in religious wings are particularly drawn to this formal tikkun ritual during a specific period of the year, referred to as “period of the naughty” (tkufat ha’shovavim). During this time, it is believed that tikkun is possible through intense prayer and wearing phylacteries (teffilin) throughout the day. Inmates believe that through these actions they can symbolically atone and cleanse their sins in a short, yet intensive, process. The inmates ask the rabbis for permission to perform Tikkun Shovavim during this period, yet the rabbis in the religious wings do not encourage this practice. Instead, the rabbis view this “instant remedy” as distracting inmates from a more in-depth process of confronting necessary issues in their daily lives, such as their jobs and families, as well as committing to future obligations for a normative lifestyle after release.

The fifth intrinsic benefit of increased religiosity in prison is status maintenance through a halo effect. Our interviewees drew upon the famous Talmudic quote “In the place where penitents stand even the wholly righteous cannot stand” to explain that in the eyes of God, one who repents is more righteous than someone who was born religious and never strayed. Interviewees drew on this quote without noting its source in a Jewish religious text (Talmud Bavli Berachot 34b). There it appears in a debate between two rabbis: Rabbi Abbihu, whose words are extracted in the famous quote, and Rabbi Yochanan, who argues the opposite, that those born religious are more righteous than those who repent. In later religious texts, rabbinic scholars interpret and continue this debate; for our interviewees, Rabbi Abbihu’s stance inspired a sense of righteousness.

For some, the idea that being repentant has made them righteous boosts their self-esteem. Haim, for instance, spoke of the way he now believed in himself more and had become a model prisoner in the religious ward: “I was really an example for everyone there . . . I would never have thought I could do it.” Akiva took this further, explaining how embracing religion put him on a path toward “perfection”: “I’m not perfect, I’m far from being perfect, but I’m a lot closer to it than I used to be.”

For others, becoming religious generated a sense of superiority, as though their metaphoric rebirth made them better than others who had not embraced religion. Ironically, this sense of superiority was sometimes displayed during the interviews for this study, as interviewees “preached” to the secular student interviewers about the heavenly consequences awaiting them for not keeping the Sabbath. Ironically, this occurred in interviews with ex-prisoners who had serious past felonies.

The halo effect enabled men who formerly held status positions in the criminal world to retain their sense of status. Speaking of his life before incarceration as a criminal kingpin who committed severe crimes, Ezra explained, “I wasn’t willing to let anyone tell me what to do. Because unfortunately I was a gang leader, I would tell them what to do, nobody told me what do.” Entering the religious ward in prison was the first time he submitted himself to external rules: “Suddenly you come to this structured framework: don’t do it this way, pray, wake up in the morning and say the blessing, eat together.”

Embracing religion enabled Ezra to maintain his sense of status even as he submitted to a “bigger boss,” as he relays through an analogy between himself and a righteous scholar in the Talmud:

They say a man who repents is in a higher place than the most righteous person . . . The rabbi told me that I am like Rish Lakish, who was a famous head of a band of bandits and became a righteous leader of scholars. Ever since he has called me “Rish Lakish.”

By calling him Rish Lakish, the rabbi “koshers” Ezra as a leader of the righteous, in line with his previous status as a gang leader, preserving his position and role, and legitimizing his transformation.

The final intrinsic benefit of increased religiosity during incarceration was the continuous support the men received for continuing the path even after setbacks. The men were taught that repentance is a long, gradual, and often bumpy path in which one may temporarily sin along the way but return to the path of repentance, closer to penance than one was before, despite the temporary relapse. Interviewees addressed momentary relapses as a “fall” (nefila) or as temporarily “stepping away” (hitrachkut) from the religious path, eventually followed by a “return” (chazara) or by “becoming closer to religion” (hitkarvut). Abraham noted, “There are always descents and falls with religion. Always, for everyone. It’s not always rising up, at least not for me.”

The men were taught in the ward that the path of repentance (teshuva) is not a wholly consuming rebirth or sudden transformation. Rather, it necessarily entails falling and rising up again seven times, even for the most righteous man, following the biblical verse “For though the righteous person [tzadik] may fall seven times, he will rise up again” (Proverbs 24:16). This verse was widely used by our interviewees to discuss temporary strays from the path as part of their process. Amos said,

There are ups and downs. Seven times a righteous man may fall and rise up again. Seven is a prediction. You must fall many times in order to change . . . You don’t become the Baba Sali (a famous rabbi) in one blow. If you encourage yourself, you can rise up again.

Like Amos, Michael too compared himself with a righteous man to preserve his dignity as he spoke of his bumpy path:

I told my wife seven times a righteous man will fall and rise up again, and this is the seventh time. I don’t know what happened the last six times but I won’t fall again, I promise. Everyone can stumble and fall, even the purely righteous fall, so who are we, that we won’t fall?

A few interviewees who had multiple incarcerations spoke of their “falls” as synchronized with periods of incarceration and release. When incarcerated, they found it easier to move forward toward religiosity, and upon release, they found it difficult to keep all the rules of the religious way of life and eventually “fell” from the religious path, which they continued on their next incarceration. Interviewee Levi spoke of his pattern in terms of strengthening and weakening: “You stick your head out of the window, you can’t keep the Sabbath . . . when I got out, I was weakened.”

Adam described his path, beginning with his first incarceration:

In the beginning I repented, but I hadn’t truly repented. The penance was just for appearance, the penance was a cover. But then I started liking it. I started honestly keeping the Sabbath, I started putting on phylacteries, praying the afternoon and evening prayers . . .

After release, he continued to be observant for a year: “But then I had a fall for a few weeks when I stopped being observant. I did stupid things during that slip up, that fall, and I ended up back in prison.” During the interview, he vowed his determination that this time, after serving his second term, he would not “fall” again by making a conscious and clear choice to hold on to religion to safeguard him:

It doesn’t go together, religion and the stealing issue. I pushed it (stealing) out of my head and I continued with religion . . . you don’t think about it. Yes, I did what I did, I’m sorry but I want religion.

The men in our study all chose to commit to the obligations of the religious reentry program, including attending prayer, religious study groups, and meetings with a religious counselor in addition to the demands of regular reentry. When returning to their families, most of the extrinsic reasons for embracing religion were no longer relevant to their lives at home. They no longer had time, boredom, privileges, or desired segregation from other prisoners. Elsewhere (Morag & Teman, 2018), we discuss how the men used religious tools toward desistance, and how they believe religion safeguarded them from “falling”; here, we end with the suggestion that it was for the intrinsic benefits of religion that they had internalized in the religious wards that they chose to be released into the religious reentry program and to continue to be observant on the outside.

Conclusion

This study has shown the primary motivations for Jewish prisoners in Israeli prisons to begin participating in religious seminaries and for taking the further step of transferring to religious wards. The findings indicate that men were motivated to participate in seminaries primarily for both sincere and insincere reasons according to Dammer’s (2002) typology. Our interviewees were initially drawn to religious participation during incarceration out of crisis, boredom, as a way to pass the time, out of nostalgia, and to avoid work. This level of participation, in which full observance and commitment to a religious lifestyle are not required, does not seem to lower recidivism, as Haviv et al.’s (2020) study indicates.

Their motivations to commit further to a religious lifestyle by transferring to the religious wards centered especially on the community-like atmosphere and the perception of enhanced safety in the wards. However, even though men in our study who took the next step toward increased commitment to religion by transferring to the religious wards did so primarily for what Clear et al. (2000) classify as extrinsic reasons, they gained many intrinsic benefits from the intensive religious program. These included a calming effect, a sense of a clean slate, a feeling of spiritual repair, shame management, status maintenance, and a feeling of continued hope and support on a bumpy path. These intrinsic benefits may partially explain why Haviv et al. (2020) found that men who began as seminary participants and then progressed to living in the religious wards had significantly lower rates of recidivism.

Our findings extend the sincere/insincere motivations dichotomy as well as the classification of extrinsic/intrinsic benefits by mapping out the way extrinsic incentives can generate intrinsic benefits. We also suggest that motivations can change as men progress on the path. The study shows that once a man is drawn toward religion for extrinsic benefits, he may be motivated to continue a religious lifestyle upon release because of the intrinsic benefits he has received from religiosity. In a sense, one can “become sincere”: Insincere motivations can generate sincere incentives to continue upon the path.

Our findings contribute to scholarly understandings of “self-projects and meaning-making strategies” (Hallett et al., 2015) of religious converts in prison and the role of religion in the construction of a prisoner’s repentant self by illuminating a slightly different path to repentance. Although the scholarship on Christian religious conversion in U.S. and European prisons strongly suggests that conversion involves an internal process of coming to terms with shame, guilt, and forgiveness regarding the felony, a process that eventually leads to an internalized change in self-identity (Maruna et al., 2006), our findings show that internalized change can perhaps be the eventual end point of a path that begins with primarily extrinsic motivations. In comparison with other studies of prison religion (e.g., Hallett et al., 2016), the Jewish–Israeli prisoners in our study did not necessarily undergo an existential crisis leading to a reflective process of dealing with regret, shame, and guilt at the early stages of their path. For most, the process was not radical but gradual, and it was initiated and pursued primarily from extrinsic motivations; nevertheless, their path eventually generated intrinsic benefits and the beginning of an internalized process that eventually may lead to a change in self-identity.

Ronel and Segev (2014) suggest that positive criminology, an extension of the positive psychology approach, acknowledges the rehabilitative and preventive potential of positive experiences and feelings as an alternative to “fixing” and “treating” criminal behavior. Religious participation in prison seems to impart positive experiences of community, solidarity, and comfort, as well as a sense of protection and a clean slate, which may potentiate a rehabilitative effect. Ideally, these findings can be applied to aid prisoners in their rehabilitation, especially prisoners who have already started to see the intrinsic benefits of religiosity and who could possibly, with support, take the next step toward embracing religion as a safeguard mechanism and internalize change. If intensive religious programming, as Haviv et al.’s (2020) study indicates, does lower the risk of recidivism, then its potential should be further explored in both Israeli prisons and beyond, even if inmates are drawn to that programming for extrinsic reasons.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors especially want to thank Rabbi Avinoam Cohen, head of the Torah Rehabilitation Program, and his staff. The study could not have been conducted without their cooperation. The authors thank the research assistants on this project: Shlomit Tako, Tomer Poran, and Mor Mutsafi, as well as the reviewers of this article for their important comments, especially Dr. Michael Hallett for his careful reading and suggestions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The study was approved by the ethics board of the research authority of the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority and was supported by a faculty grant from Ruppin Academic Center.

ORCID iD

Elly Teman

Notes

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